A Thin Line
by S Gold
Summary: There's a thin line between love and hate, as everyone knows. But which side will Kat and Patrick end up on? All reviews are appreciated.
1. The Cynic's View

A/N: This chapter is similar to episode seven of 10TIHAY in content, but everything from here on out is different. Unless I unwittingly can read the minds of the show writers ;)

---

Teenagers, Kat had learned, were highly adaptive chameleons – they had mastered the art of doing whatever their friends were doing, and moving between fads quicker than new fads could be found. The most recent fad was a series of books, one that Kat had gotten all the way through three pages of before declaring it as a pathetic lost cause. The name of the series? "Twilight," a fictional saga about a masochistic lion and a stupid lamb that just couldn't help but fall in love.

How romantic.

After her disastrous first encounter with the book (or the first three pages, anyway), she had vowed never to pick it up again, never even think about it lest it …contaminate her mind. Or something.

But Kat found herself thinking of the series at lunch one day, as Mandela warned her for the hundredth time (probably an understatement by now) of the dangers of interacting with Patrick Verona – even looking at him seemed to warrant a direct pass to his collection of skulls.

Kat could picture the back cover of Twilight rewritten, 'Patrick Verona'–style:

_There were three things I knew for sure about Patrick Verona:_

_He was a mass murderer, one whose weapon of choice seemed to be a combination of terror and his bare hands._

_His mother was a drug smuggler, who had taught him the art of keeping things hidden, which he had employed nicely by building his own collection of his victim's fingernails. (Their bodies, of course, would be too conspicuous, as Mandela had told me.)_

_His next victim was none other than I, Kat Stratford, all because we'd exchanged some petty words and I'd kicked some trash on him. _

"Kat!" Mandela called out, snapping her back to reality, "Are you even listening to me? I'm trying to _protect _you here!"

"Thanks, Mandela, but I think I'll be alright. I don't think a _mass murderer_," she said, putting fake emphasis on the words, "would be too concerned about getting a little trash on him!"

"No, I'm serious!" she sighed, as if the fact that Kat didn't think that Patrick was out to get her was a terrible tragedy and she would be murdered in her sleep the next night.

"Mandela, I already told you this, he's just trying to get girls by being all 'mysterious'. And," she continued, as Patrick came into view with a giggling blonde behind him, "it looks like it's working."

Kat couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance. _How_, she wondered, _were females supposed to be taken seriously as an equal sex if they lowered themselves to such groveling_ _– _the blonde shot Patrick a slavish, disgusting look – _insecure, _-- Patrick slung his arm around her and she giggled again – _desperate standards?!_

"Kat? Are you…okay? You're crushing your milk carton."

"Sorry," she said, coming out of her angry reverie, "Just contemplating the unreasonable, completely futile and unworthy aspects of life."

Mandela nodded slowly. "Uh…huh."

***

"I need to talk to you," said an all too familiar voice from behind her while she fished in her locker for her chemistry book. She recognized the deep drawl instantly, and mentally winced.

"Shame," she said, in what she hoped was an 'I'm-so-bored-with-your-antics' voice, "I was having such a good day too."

He smirked. "Well this should make it even better."

She grabbed her book and closed her locker, walking away from Patrick, even though, okay, she felt a _tiny _twinge of curiosity. She pushed it away. "Don't count on it."

He grabbed her wrist. "Wait."

Momentarily shocked, she didn't even try to pull her arm away. She felt a spasm of heat, something not primarily accounted for by his hand.

_Don't be stupid, _she thought, _it's just Mandela's horror stories getting to me… _

She tried not to think of the other reason she'd be feeling unexpectedly hot when Patrick Verona – of all people – touched her on the _wrist. _

Back to her senses, she pulled her wrist away. "I'm late."

Still, she lingered for a moment, not walking away, not quite sure what she was waiting for –

"I think I may have phrased something wrong."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Patrick Verona, master of eloquence, phrasing something wrong? God forbid!"

"Don't be so mean," he said smirking, "Just because you're obsessed with me."

She tutted. "Careful. Wishful thinking never gets you anywhere. Now what was that you said you needed to talk to me about?"

"When I said I needed to talk to you…" he smirked, talking slowly, "I meant I needed to _do _something."

His words were like a trigger – immediately she became aware of the small, easily-bridged distance between them. Of the tiny hints he'd been dropping and she'd been trying to ignore. Of the things she'd been trying to ignore, like the tiny heat when he'd touched her wrist.

And then it was gone, the space between them bridged as he leaned in and kissed her slowly, tantalizingly.

Her mind whirled. _We are in a school hallway – someone could see us! What am I doing – what is _he _doing?! Oh jeez_.

But even as her mind went through a list of all the reason this was so, so wrong, she felt all resistance begin to leave her.

When they broke apart, she was stunned, but masked it. "And look," she said, "You didn't even murder me!"

"I can get my scalpel, if you'd like."

She laughed.

"You see," he said, "I've finally figured it out. Why you're different. It's because with you," he said smiling, and she felt herself begin to too, "we can just _do stuff_. There are no obligations, no…requirements."

She froze, the reasons why everything was wrong and why she could never, _ever_ trust Patrick Verona filtering back in.

"So basically," she said, evenly, still smiling at him, pretending everything was okay and she could just use her like another one of his other fan girls, "You get to, ahem '_do stuff_' with me, just for fun. And no '_obligations_'."

She could feel herself starting to get emotional now, and she couldn't believe how _stupid _she'd been for trusting him, for letting him in like that, for believing for one second that he actually cared about her.

He quickly saw that something was wrong and spoke, sounding upset. "Kat--"

_Yeah well, _thought Kat, _I'm never falling for that again._

"Well get something straight, Patrick," she said, furious to the point where she couldn't think, "I'm not going to be another one of your desperate, mindless little girls that you can just toss around. You should've known that."

She turned away from him and begin walking – she wasn't quite sure where, but she could figure that out after she was one hundred feet away from him and the anger abided enough for her to think straight again.

"Wait," he called, "Kat, that's not--"

She turned around, giving him one last defiant stare and cutting him off. "Save it. I don't want to hear it."

And she walked away, trying to ignore the fact that the reason why she didn't want to hear it was because she was scared that she'd believe him.


	2. Right Back At You

As a child, Kat had never been good at hide and seek. It was a fact that came back to haunt her as she spent the rest of the day frantically trying to avoid Patrick, so that by the end of the day she was so eager to leave that she practically pushed a flustered Bianca into the car. She even broke her rule of not speeding, driving ten miles per hour above speed limit.

"Jeez," Bianca said, "What's up with you?"

"Nothing's up with me," Kat snapped back, not thinking.

Bianca looked hurt. "Jeez…Apparently I'm not the only one getting menopause from NPR."

Kat felt a rush of guilt. She shouldn't have yelled at her, but she was in a horrible mood. Not that it was any justification, but, oh, dammit, it was all Patrick's fault.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," she said, cheering up slightly. "But seriously, what's up with you? You sound worse than _I _do and Jeanette got Emily's spot on the cheer squad instead of I did. _So _unfair, by the way. So wait, what's up with you again?"

Kat tried to keep a blank face and a neutral voice. "…Nothing. I already said that."

"Yeah, and like I'd believe that. Come on, even a _rock _could tell that you're upset over something. What's the matter? Patrick litter again?"

Just the mention of his name made Kat temporarily forget to think, a moment that coincided with a sharp turn. She forget to brake and took the turn at way past speed limit, throwing both her and Bianca forward. "Oops. Sorry."

Bianca seemed unconcerned about the fact that she could have just been injured. "So it IS about Patrick! Tell me _all _about it. I want to know the juicy tidbits! Finally, you're getting a life!"

Kat considered her options. She could tell her sister, but it would be blackmail for life.

_Yes, but_, her conscience pointed out quite matter-of-factly, _You need someone to talk to. Someone else's opinion. Someone else who isn't, ahem, biased. Someone who doesn't have a crush on Patrick Verona._

_I don't have a crush on that lying two-faced jerk! _

With a groan she realized that she was arguing with herself.

_I guess I _do _need to talk to Bianca._

***

"So lemme get this straight," Bianca said slowly, later that night. Kat couldn't remember the last time they'd had a "sleepover" in the same room, but having one today made her feel a rush of affection towards her sister. "He kissed you. And told you there were no obligations?"

"Exactly!" Kat fumed. "Isn't that infuriating?"

Much to Kat's dismay, her sister didn't sound too infuriated. "Well…you might be taking his words the wrong way. I mean, I don't think he meant 'let's just make out a lot'."

"That's totally what he meant," Kat cried, exasperated at her sister's pigheadedness, "he thinks that I'll be some damsel in distress he can just pick up on his horse, have some fun with, and drop at the side of the road again!"

Her sister stared at her. "You've obviously been listening to Mandela too much. Maybe you're painting him as the bad guy too much."

"But I don't need to _paint _him as the bad guy, he _is _the bad guy!"

She sounded completely unlike herself. "Okay, you know what, I'm just gonna let this go."

"Maybe you should just talk to him about it."

Kat almost laughed at the absurdity of this suggestion. "Talk to him? I don't think so. Not unless _I _plan on becoming a murderer."

"Come _on_, Kat. What are you gonna do then, avoid him?"

Kat didn't reply.

"You can avoid _him_, Kat, but you can't avoid _yourself, _and how you feel."

"You sound like a teenage romance novel," Kat said, even as the truth of her sister's statement sunk in.

***

The next three days could have counted as CIA training, as Kat was schooled in the fundamental high school art of dodging people, hiding in the bathroom, and getting her books from her lockers in three seconds flat. Then there was the skill of getting to class five seconds before the late bell rings just so that all the seats are filled but one, preferably one AWAY from a certain person. She even had to convince her sister to leave the building early, just so they could be gone before Patrick caught up to her. And could say something. In his irritable, cocky, always-right, and totally sexy way.

The shit _really _escalated on the third day, when she got to school to find _guess who_ wrapped around another blonde slut in front of her locker. She couldn't believe his nerve. After _all _he'd said, after trying to _apologize, _for the love of God, he had the nerve to end up making out with some other girl?

Options flitted through her brain. She could taser him, which would have felt great at the moment. She could kick him in the groin under pretense of getting to her locker. She smiled at the thought, but then realized that all of these things would show him that she really did care.

And she was determined not to.

She forced herself to accept the truth – he really didn't care about her. Not one bit. About as much as the girl who was now pressed (!) into (!) her (!) locker. She reminded herself to bring a bottle of the strongest sanitizer she could find the next day. And besides, she had no reason to be angry. After all, she didn't care about him either.

She cleared her throat loudly, causing both of them to surface. The blonde looked flustered. Patrick's expression was harder to decode – it was completely blank. Then he said, with complete neutrality and absolutely no emotion, "Right. Sorry," and left without a further word.

It was unexplainable, this anger she felt bubbling up in her. And in the back of her mind, the part she rarely ever listened to and rarely ever was wrong, she knew that no matter how much she told herself that Patrick Verona was a lying manwhore, she was a bit – okay, more than a bit – jealous of whatever girl(s) he had wrapped around him all day.

She kicked her locker.

"Kat."

_Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Crapppp. I _knew _I should've been faster. Oh, what's wrong with? Just ignore him and get the hell out. Who needs notebooks for English? I'll just pretend I left your notebook at home. _

Kat pretended not to hear him and continued shifting aimlessly around in her locker, even though by now she'd forgotten what class she had.

"You know, you can't ignore me forever. We go to the same school. We take half of each other's classes. You can't just avoid me, and I mean that."

"Yeah, well," she said, slamming her locker to face him, "I meant it when I said to save it."

He was walking towards her again. Why, oh why, was he always walking towards her? Why couldn't he just keep his distance instead of tempting her, putting her brain into overdrive and making it impossible to think clearly?

"I don't get," he said, looking alarmingly angry – more angry than Kat had ever seen him (or more than he had ever _let _Kat see him) – "Why you can't just accept the fact that _maybe--_" he accentuated the word with a kick to her locker, "You _like _me."

"And I," she said, fighting back even though she didn't want to, even though he was completely right and she knew it, fighting Patrick and herself at the same time, "Don't get why you can't get accept the fact that _maybe," _another kick to her locker, "Not every girl in this school is just going to be another instant fuck. That _maybe _I'm not just going to let you use me!"

She kicked her locker again, thinking that by the end of this discussion, her locker would be dented at best. Poor thing.

"Oh for the love of God, Kat," he practically shouted and then kissed her again. Against her own wishes, she pushed him away.

"You're such an idiot!" she cried, "Do you honestly think I'm going to be able to believe _anything _you say after seeing you with that …other…girl earlier today?"

He froze. "She didn't mean anything," he said dismissively.

"Oh? And do _I _mean anything?"

"Of course you do!" Patrick shouted back at her, "Because you _aren't _that other girl who'll just make out with me and be happy. Come _on _Kat, _think_, when I said 'no obligations', I didn't mean an "instant fuck," thank you very much, and I can't believe you'd even think that that's what I meant!"

"Well," said Kat, trying to think as little as possible about what Patrick had just said, and trying to work around her feelings altogether, "Think about that poor girl! Thinking you actually had a thing for her. Just like someone," she spat, "else we know."

She shot him an accusatory glare.

"Believe me, Sandra didn't think we were doing anything more than making out and it meant anything more than making out."

"What?"

"_She just wanted a hook up._"

"Oh," she said, faking surprise, "Well in that case, you two should be perfect for each other."

"You aren't listening to me. I like you, Kat. And when I said no obligations, I didn't mean, you know, what you thought I meant. I meant we wouldn't have to, oh, let me think, have 'feeling chats' at Friday every 3 p.m.," he winced at the memory, "or…explain every single girl I talk to. Or look at."

Kat cocked an eyebrow, trying to masquerade her genuine interest. "So explain Sandy."

"_Sandra_."

"No, I like Sandy."

He glared at her before replying. "First of all, she knew what that whole…uh," he winced, realizing the situation he had just put himself in. He now had to _define _making out with Sandra. "…that whole _episode _meant. Nothing. Okay? So don't cast her as the defenseless one. Secondly…"

He trailed off, and Kat tapped her foot impatiently. She wanted his pathetic excuse, pronto, just so she could shoot it down.

The excuse never came, however, as Patrick hesitated, looking unsure.

"Secondly?" she prompted, impatiently.

He seemed to make up his mind. "It's a coping mechanism."

Kat was so surprised she forgot to be sarcastic and angry. "Coping? With what?"

"What is this, an interview? Alright, fine. Coping with teenage girls who _don't _want to be 'desperate mindless girls' or whatever you said. Alright? Are you happy?"

"While..that was eloquent," she said, trying to mask her excitement at the fact that _Patrick Verona _had actively admitted a weakness, "I think what you really meant was rejection. Face it, Patrick. You can't handle the fact that maybe I don't want to be with you."

He threw one stunned look at her, and this time, it was he who walked away.


	3. Defiance

Kat needed help.

It wasn't something she liked to admit – ever – but this was one of those times when yes, she needed help.

It was the night after the, ahem, locker blowup with Patrick, and she was sitting on her bed, unable to do anything but look through the yearbook photos she'd taken just in case there were ones of Patrick she'd missed. She wondered what on Earth was causing her to be this obsessed.

"Bianca," she shouted, trying to figure out what she was playing at.

Bianca came running. "What? Did Dad find out about--"

"No, Dad didn't find out about anything," she said impatiently, and then grimaced and took the plunge; "But I…I need your help."

"Ooh!" she said, in a voice annoying enough to make Kat consider just throwing her out of her room and going to someone else for advice. Not that she _had _anyone else to go to for advice. "Kat, of all people, needs help! I thought this day would never come," Bianca finished.

"Yes." She gulped. "I need your help. It's about Patrick. Again."

"Honestly, Kat," Bianca said, temporary excitement deflated. She rolled her eyes seemingly disappointed that she'd been called to Kat's room for a situation as easily fixable as it seemed to be (to Bianca, at least); "Are you _still _upset over that? I thought I told you already, just get over it and face facts--"

"Okay!" Kat interrupted, unable to stand the lecture, "It's not about that, alright, _yes, I like him_, but that's not the point."

"Yes it is," Bianca said, a wide grin suddenly splitting her face, "And that means that if _you two date_…_I can date!_"

Kat groaned. "Is that really the _only _thing you have to say about this?"

"Yes. And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go blow dry my hair before it starts frizzing like mad."

***

Mandela, on the other hand, took the opposite extreme.

"So wait. Patrick Verona _kissed you_?" she said in shock for the fiftieth time the next day at lunch, after Kat had explained her predicament.

"Yes," Kat said, exasperated, but that's _not the point_. The point is that he basically wanted me to be his little slut! How wrong is that? Besides, it's such a typical male view. How sexist!"

"Are you feeling okay?" Mandela continued, completely disregarding Kat's comments, "I mean who knows, he could have sucked your soul out!"

Suddenly, at the discovery of this dire risk to Kat's wellbeing, she let out a downpour of questions. "Do you remember where you were last Monday? Have you been feeling strange lately? Oh God, he might have contaminated you!"

Kat stared in disbelief. "This is _Patrick Verona _we're talking about, you know. Not a werewolf!"

"…How about any uncharacteristic leaning towards evil? The strange desire to rip people to shreds, like he's known for doing? Any drug-like side effects? Kat, we should see the nurse."

"Oh, that's it. It's perfect. I'll just ask her if it's possible that kissing Patrick Verona could turn me into a werewolf slash psychopath. You're a genius, Mandela, why didn't I think of that? Oh right, because it's not the problem!"

"It's perfectly normal to be feeling angry for no reason," Mandela said, suddenly nervous.

Kat groaned. "I'm not 'infected', and I'm not gonna kill you."

She looked profoundly relieved. "Alright, well I can't help you with any of that…But there's a party we can go tonight, which might help take your mind off all this Patrick crap. I told you he was bad for your mental health, didn't I?"

"Yes, okay, you told me. Now, where's this party. Bianca's going to want to go and since she is, I might as well too. It can't hurt, right? And besides, my Dad's going to want me to keep an eye out for Bianca. As if that ever works."

Mandela passed her a sheet of paper with the address on it. "Can't wait."

"I can," Kat muttered under her breath.

***

As expected, Bianca cornered her the moment they got home.

"Kat," she announced, as if she were making a speech, "I need a favor."

"Let me guess," Kat said, "There's a party tonight and you need me to chauffeur you there."

"Chauffeur? _English!_"

"_It is English! _It means drive, Miss Daisy, now do you want me to take you there or not?"

Bianca stopped dead. "How did you find out about the party? I know you, and you're never invited to anything!"

Kat stared at her. "Need I remind you that you need me to give you a ride?"

"I mean, wow, look, you _are _getting a life! Ha-ha-ha…"

Kat glared. "I thought Dad was cracking down on you?"

Bianca stared at her like she was stupid, a look that Kat did not appreciate one bit and returned with equal intensity. "Kat," said Bianca, "Are you insane? Dad's out of town! Don't you remember? He's at one of this honcho poncho medical meetings. Or something. He told us like a week ago, remember? Jeez. Maybe Patrick _is _getting to your head."

Kat shook her head as suddenly, she remembered the week before. Her dad _had _said something about leaving town for a few days. _Oh, man, _she thought, _Amnesia too? I really am losing it._

"Must we bring up Patrick in _every _conversation," she practically shouted, frustrated. "I'm so sick of him!"

"Yeah, well," she said, "The sooner you hurry up and get together, the sooner I shut up. Now I have to go get ready."

"Ready?!" Kat practically screamed as Bianca ran up the stairs to her room, "Bianca, I am not going to wait five hours for you to do something stupid to your hair!"

"The party doesn't start for another two hours," Kat heard Bianca yell from the top of the stairs, "And besides, I want to be _fashionably late_. Ever heard of it?"

Kat let out a groan of frustration and got out her laptop. There was nothing like a few hours of trashing the pathetic people in the yearbook photos she'd taken.

Her usual therapy strategy didn't go quite as planned, however, as Kat found herself staring at every single damn picture of Patrick Verona she'd taken, and focusing on the exact circumstances under which they had been taken.

_Goddamnit, _she thought, _Does he ever leave me alone?_

_You need to think things through_, the sensible side of her said, _You have feelings for him, right?_

_No. _

…

_Maybe._

_That's the first step – admitting that you have feelings for him._

_I didn't admit I have feelings for him!_

_Let's disregard that. You have feelings for him. _

"Arghh!" she said out loud, closing her laptop. She put her head into her hands, trying to think about anything, _anything _but Patrick freaking Verona. Even trying to analyze and reflect on the Feminine Mystique couldn't help her, and _that _was saying something.

"Kat? Are you asleep?"

Her sister's voice drifted into her frustrated, aggravated head. She raised her head out of her hands. "Oh – has it been--" she looked at the clock, "—oh wow. That was fast. Okay, let me get the ke – holy crap! What in the name of God are you wearing?!"

She had just caught sight of Bianca's "outfit" – hell, could it even be considered an outfit?

"Isn't it obvious," Bianca said, "it's a blouse, and a skirt."

"More like two pieces of cloth taped onto you! Go put on a sweater! And pants!"

"Kat! Come on," Bianca pleaded, "This is how everyone dresses to parties! It's my one chance to actually look cool now that Dad's not gone. Don't ruin this for me, come _on_!" she pleaded.

Kat felt a smidge of sympathy for her. "Fine," she sighed, "But _bring _a sweater. Okay?"

She winced as Bianca let out an eardrum-killing squeal. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you _thank you!_"

"Yeah, okay. Now let's get going before we're so late it's--" she imitated Bianca's voice; "—_unfashionable_."

***

She pulled up next to a sprawling, gigantic marble house that might as well housed a celebrity. "Jesus Christ, Bianca," she said, "Who lives here?"

"You don't know who lives here?" Bianca said, as if Kat's ignorance was reprehensible, "I can't believe you don't know who lives here."

Kat got out of the car. "Are you going to tell me who lives here or just fray me mentally to bits with your scathing words?"

Bianca rolled her eyes. "This is _Chastity's _house."

"Chastity's? Oh, God, I can't believe I took you here."

Bianca grabbed her arm and dragged her up to the house. "Just stay as far away from me as possible. I _can't _let you be seen anywhere near me."

"You're welcome for the ride, Bianca."

"Thanks in advance for not being seen within 200 feet of me, Kat."

"Please. Why would I want to be seen within 200 feet of you?"

They had reached the door, which Bianca unceremoniously shoved open. They were immediately met with a blast of music. Inside the giant house were walls of people – Kat had no clue how she was going to find Mandela.

"Well?" said Bianca, halfway into the house already, "Are you going to come in or just stand there?"

Kat went into the house, sighing. "Why on Earth," she said out loud, walking aimlessly, "Did I come here tonight?"

She grabbed a drink (without a doubt, she thought after tasting it, alcoholic), and tried to find anyone she knew.

"Hey," said someone she had never seen before in her life, "Do I know you?"

"I don't think so," she said politely, and tried to shift past him.

"Really? I could have sworn I've seen your face somewhere. But I guess I'm wrong. I would remember a face like yours."

She almost choked on the drink she was drinking, and it took all her civility to refrain from laughing at the line he'd used on her.

She sized him up. He was only about an inch or two taller than her, with light brown hair, and green eyes. _A strange combination, she thought_.

Basically, the near-opposite of Patrick.

_Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. We are _not_, _she willed herself, _going back to Patrick! I thought Icame here to forget about him!"_

She smiled back at him endearingly. "That's sweet."

_Why the hell not, _she thought, draining her drink, _might as well socialize. After all, I am perfectly capable of socializing. Just like Bianca. Just like Patrick._

He smiled. "I'm Logan," he said, handing her another drink.

"Kat," she said. "Oh…thanks." She took the drink.

_That's what, ten now?_

_Oh ha-ha-ha. It's the third. Or fourth. What does it matter, the cups are tiny!_

"So where do you go," she said, trying to make conversation.

"I'm from out of town," he replied, blushing, as if this was a part of the conversation he had been hoping would never come up. "Massachusetts."

"Wow. Across the country," she said, trying to appear genuinely interested. _Where I'd like to be right now_, she added to herself.

He laughed. "Yeah. You?"

"Not nearly as interesting. I go to Padua, the local public school. Whoo."

"That's good," Lenny-or was it Lambert – _wait, _it was Logan! – said, moving closer to her at an alarming rate.

_Oh God, _she thought, _here we go. _She was just about to push him away when she saw a familiar figure just outside the door. Her brain went into overdrive. _Oh God, why is he here, why is he here, why is he here._

_Probably to talk to me. Why does he want to talk to me? Well I sure as hell don't want to talk to him, _she thought, and, in a combination of recklessness and defiance, kissed Logan.

---

A/N: Here's Chapter Three! I probably won't have anything up tomorrow :(, but I'll try to have Chapter Four up by Sunday, tomorrow night if I'm really, REALLY lucky. Enjoy! :)

S


	4. Lost

She wouldn't have done it if Patrick hadn't been watching, which she _knew _he was. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did – call it intuition, call it a sixth sense, call it whatever you want. She preferred to call it intuitionalized bullshit.

Besides, Patrick Verona didn't just hang around doorways, especially ones that she was in. And, she reasoned, if Logan hadn't been there, Patrick probably would have just barged in and tried to talk to her. Like he _always did_.

But it wasn't like Patrick could complain – he made out with practically ten girls a day; exaggeration: slight. So what if Kat had some fun too? It really wasn't any of Patrick's business anyways.

Not that kissing Logan was 'fun', per se. Then again, she allowed herself to think, Patrick had sent impossibly high standards for him.

_Okay, that's it! No more Patrick thoughts. _

Kat tried to be as unresponsive as possible in hopes that Logan would just, you know, break it off, but instead he got more and more enthusiastic. He was so enthusiastic, in fact, that Kat felt herself get more and more repulsed as Logan got more and more eager. Kat tried not to think about the things he could be eager about, and then tried to keep herself from making a run for it. Which was really, really hard, for the record.

She felt strange, though – out of her element. It might have just been the complete strangeness of what she was doing, or –

A thought struck her.

Exactly how many glasses had she had today? Three? Four? Six? Plus the one Logan had given her. Which made it either four, five, or seven, (she wasn't sure why she skipped six), depending on how optimistic she wanted to be.

She felt the sudden desire to puke, which wasn't helped by the fact that Logan had now moved his hand under her shirt.

She pushed him away.

He looked upset. "What?"

She barely managed the words, "Stop. I'm not feeling good."

And it was true. She really, really wasn't feeling good, now that she thought about it. A little nauseous. A little dizzy. A little _not freaking good._

Her conscience picked that exact moment to chime in with its usual pieces of golden advice.

_What the hell have you done? _

_Nothing yet, _she snapped back at herself, _I just kissed him, okay? And I've had a couple drinks. I'm alright. I'm not passing out._

_Yet. _

"Oh come on," Logan said, leering, and she could tell he wasn't buying a single thing she said, "Don't be such a tease."

"Excuse me?" she said, feeling the sudden urge to punch this guy in the face.

"We both know," he said, smiling at her in a rather nauseatingly sweet way, "that we both enjoyed that. So," he said, kissing her again, "Why stop?"

She pushed him away again, beginning to get impatient. "Seriously, my head hurts. I think I had a bit too much…I'm gonna…Find somewhere to sit."

She edged past him. She felt a bit…wobbly, which wasn't a good sign.

_Oh God. I'm drunk. That's not good, that's not good at all._

"Listen," she said, talking more to herself than Logan, "I'm really okay. I just need to sit down for a bit. A long bit. And get myself a cup of water. Yeah, a cup of water will help. Do they even have water here?" she asked nobody in particular, when she realized that she couldn't recall seeing a glass of water anywhere she had been.

Logan raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, never mind. I'm okay."

She wasn't sure if this was completely true, however, as her headache was getting worse and worse. Logan, unfortunately, was undeterred, and followed her. "I guess I'll just have to make sure you feel better then," he said.

"I'm fine," she said, temper escalating, and gave him a slight shove.

"Don't touch me!" he said vehemently.

"You didn't have much of a problem with it before, did you?" she fired back.

He grabbed her arm. "Excuse me?"

"I said," she shouted, feeling completely unstable, "_You didn't have much of a problem with it before! _You could have just told me if you had hearing problems."

"Oh, shut up," he said.

"If you really want me to, you can just leave, damn it!"

And then he was kissing her again, and she felt like she was going to fall over and she heard something that sounded vaguely like "I like you better when you aren't talking" and she was feeling sort of dizzy, and oh God, she nearly tripped over and Logan put his hand on her back, which she didn't like at all, so she shoved the hand away but then she lost her balance and then for some reason he got really pissed and started yelling things she couldn't make out, oh God, she was really, really dizzy now and he was screaming which was making her head hurt even more so she told him to stop screaming – or tried to, she wasn't quite sure how loud her words came out – and she must have done something wrong because he gave her a little push and then she was falling, way heavier than she knew was possible and then there was a dull throb at her head and everything went black.

***

Something was not right.

She was asleep. Or had been asleep, because she couldn't possibly be thinking _and _asleep. And thinking about thinking about thinking while being asleep. Wait. Could she?

She realized that she was lying on something soft – definitely cushioned. Which meant it was either a bed, or a couch. Even so, she thought, she was really quite sore. Her arms felt heavy and her back felt like she'd taken up heavy duty gymnastics.

She also had a stabbing headache, which wasn't good. That meant that she couldn't be dreaming, she realized in a bout of epiphany, because in dreams, you could never feel pain. Real pain, anyways.

Fragmented pieces of a dream drifted back to her. There was a guy named Lowell. Or Lenny. Or something. Patrick was involved, as usual, although she wasn't quite sure _how _he was involved. He was somehow connected to Lenny…or had influenced Lenny…or her? Somehow they were all connected. She strained, trying to dig into her subconscious and retrieve another detail. For a dream – even if she only remembered inadequate bits and pieces of it – it had been eerily real.

She let out a small groan as a stab of pain seemed to smash into her skull from the inside out. She opened an eye, and then realized she had no clue where she was. She couldn't see anything – it was really dark, and even if it wasn't dark, her head was throbbing like mad, so she doubted she'd be able to see anything anyways. She turned her head to the side. There was a clock – which said 2:30 AM.

_Where the hell am I? Oh God, oh God, oh God. And where's Bianca? _Crap! _Bianca! Oh shit, I am so screwed. Why can't I remember anything?_

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and then froze.

That smell.

She knew that smell.

The last time she had smelled that scent this strongly was in a hallway, she realized, as her mind suddenly flooded with a memory.

_She had been late for Chemistry._

_He had said something about needing to talk to her._

_He rephrased, changing "talk to" to "do something to."_

_He had kissed her._

_An argument had broken ou—_

"Oh, God," she said out loud. She sat up and was met immediately with her head's displeasure, as a rocket of pain shot through her. She flopped back onto the bed.

"Kat?"

An all too familiar deep voice came from somewhere in the dark. There was no one next to her on the bed, meaning he was somewhere else in the room. Her heart raced and she struggled to keep her breathing normal and ignore the stabbing pains in her head.

She tried to speak normally, without yelling like she felt like doing at the moment. "Patrick," she said, trying to sound remotely sane (unlike how she was feeling); "Why the _fuck _am I in your room?"

--

A/N: I'm not actually sure how this one turned out. What do you guys think? Anyways, I'm really, really looking forward to writing the next chapter – hopefully, if I write it not-too-badly, we'll get to see a more emotional side of Kat. And possibly Patrick?

Reviews would be great :)

S


	5. Tolerance

A/N: Originally I was going to have the Patrick/Kat bedroom scene last one chapter, but it ended up being way too long to combine into one chapter. So either later today or tomorrow I'll have the second part up, and that'll be the slightly emotional-er part – I'm going to try and have them talk about their pasts… :O

Please review :)

S

--

She heard him move from the left side of her to the right side, and flick on a light. The light not only temporarily blinded her, but also sent her head into another throbbing panic attack.

"Light…off," she managed, while clutching her head.

"Oops. Sorry," he said, flipping it off. He sat down at the foot of her bed, making her a little bit more than uncomfortable. "What," he continued, "do you remember from last night?"

She strained her memory, but strangely enough, couldn't remember anything. "I…can't. Nothing."

She really, really wished she could see Patrick – his voice was completely unreadable. "You don't remember anything about the party?"

"Party?" she said, confused, "What party?"

"The party at Chastity's house…last night…really, really big house. Lots of people. Lots of drinks."

Fragmented thoughts flowed back to her, and she remembered the dream that had been scarily real.

"Oh God," she said.

"What?"

"I think I remember. There was a guy named Louis. Lon? I can't remember the exact name. And…I think you were involved somehow. I can't remember anything else. That's not the point, though, where's Bianca? And how did I get here? And _why _am I here? _I want answers, Patrick!_"

She was desperate at this point, struggling to remember anything – _anything _– about the night in question.

"Bianca is fine," Patrick reassured her, "I explained the situation to her, and she's staying at a friend's house."

"Oh," said Kat, full of sarcasm, "That makes it okay then. Because now everyone knows the, ahem, 'situation'. Everyone except, oh wait, me!"

"For the love of God, Kat, calm down!"

"I will not calm down!" she said heatedly, "It's past 2 in the morning, I'm in your bedroom – God knows why, there's some mysterious situation that everyone knows about but me, and I have a throbbing headache!"

"Long story short," Patrick replied, "There was a party last night. Some idiot tried to hit on you. You got a bit frisky and started making out with him."

Kat heard a hint of – what was that? – annoyance in Patrick's voice at that last line, and couldn't decide whether she was imagining it or not.

_Why does it matter? _She told herself, _You aren't interested in him anyways._

"I guess you'd had a bit too much to drink, cause the next thing I know you two are getting into a heated argument in the middle of their living room. You wanted to sit down and he had…'other things' in mind. And I suppose your alcohol tolerance is pretty close to _nada_, because then I look up and he shoves you a tiny bit and you fall and pass out."

Kat tried to come up with something to say. "Oh, fuck."

"No kidding."

She felt a rush of appreciation for the concern in his voice.

"So why couldn't Bianca take me home?"

"…Kat. Bianca can't drive."

"Oh right," Kat said, shaking her head. "Sorry. I'm a bit out of it."

"Thank you, oh wise one, for clearing that one up."

She disregarded the obvious mockery in his voice. "Well why couldn't you drive the two of us to _our _house?"

"Well," said Patrick, sounding sarcastically scholarly and haughty, "Bianca told me your Dad was out of town."

Kat silently cursed Bianca in her head.

Patrick continued. "…So it came down to: should I leave a possibly injured Katherine Stratford with her 15 year old younger sister, home alone, who can't even drive, or should I take her to my place where there's an adult and plenty of aspirin? What a tough choice."

"We have aspirin at my house," she said, annoyed. (And avoiding the fact that he was right.)"How'd I get here?"

"…I drove."

"No shit, but how'd you get me on your steel contraption of death with a motor?"

Patrick sounded incredulous. "Are you _kidding _me? I didn't take you here on the motorcycle, I drove your car!"

"_You drove my car?!_" said Kat, angry at this sudden revelation for reasons unbeknownst to her.

"_No, _I flew you here. _Yes, I drove your car! _Would you like to explain to me why this is such a crime?!"

"I can't believe you drove my car."

"…I think you hit your head harder than I had previously thought."

"Oh, shut up."

Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now, and she could make out Patrick's figure sitting on the bed. She was still wearing the clothes from the party, she realized. _Thank God, _she thought, _Would you rather Patrick change you? _And immediately blushed at the thought.

"Logan!" she remembered suddenly.

"What?"

"Sorry. That's his name. The guy. I just remember—nevermind."

"Good to know you're feeling alright," Patrick said, and got off her bed. He walked over to the left side of the bed and lay down.

"What? You're sleeping on the floor?" Kat said, shocked.

"No, actually I sleep in a coffin. I'm a vampire, didn't you know?"

"Ha-ha-ha…Why are you sleeping on the floor?"

"Well it was either that or _you _could sleep on the floor."

"That's completely unnecessary," Kat argued, "And _so _sexist. I am just as capable as weathering out a night on the floor as you are. Just because I'm a--"

"You never do give up, do you?" came his voice, muffled and undoubtedly buried in his pillow, "I wouldn't be surprised if you gave feminist speeches in your sleep. I wasn't doubting your ability to 'weather it out on the floor'! Believe me, Kat, I'm sure you could weather it out outside if you wanted."

"Then why--"

"Alright! If you want to sleep on the floor that badly, be my guest--"

"That's not what I was saying. Neither of us have to sleep on the floor, really," she said, and immediately regretted it.

There was a beat of silence, and then Patrick spoke, a note of wicked incredulity sidling into his voice. "Why, Katherine Stratford."

Kat cringed.

"Did you just invite me to sleep with you?"

"Oh, please. Don't flatter yourself too much, Patrick, your ego might bring the house crashing down; it's so big. I just think it's completely sexist to have to put one of us below the other. Meaning, me below you. It's feminism, not romance."

_Yeah, go me, _she thought to herself,_ now he thinks I'm lusting after him. _

She tried not to think about whether or not she was actually lusting after him.

"Well," he said, completely ignoring her comments - and Kat could picture his smirk pasted onto his face - "If you insist."

The next thing she knew, Patrick had climbed onto the bed and was lying less than two feet away from her.

_How do I get myself in these situations?!_

She tried not to hyperventilate, and tried to squirm her way to the very edge of the bed. In short, as far away from Patrick as possible.

She then leaned onto her side and faced the wall so that she couldn't see Patrick, and _still _couldn't breathe normally.

_Not good, not good, not good, not good. Why did I say that?_

"Oh, right," said Patrick, sitting up, "Do you want an aspirin?"

Kat was so shocked by this sudden act of kindness that she almost forgot to reply. "Er…sure?"

The truth was, 'sure' didn't come close to describing how much she wanted an aspirin. She _needed _an aspirin, because her head was killing her, and she wasn't sure how long she could last with a throbbing head _and _Patrick Verona sleeping that closely.

Patrick came back with a pill and a glass of water, and handed them both to her. She accepted them gratefully, and took the pill with relief.

"You know," she said, speaking without thinking, "I may have been wrong about you. Maybe you're just a 3 AM in the morning person."

She didn't even need to look at him to know that he was smirking – she practically _heard _it. She braced herself for what was undoubtedly going to be a smartass comment, and Patrick did not disappoint.

"Nah," he said, "I'm just usually nice to the girls sleeping with me."

She took her pillow and shoved it over her face. "Great," she said, her voice stifled, "I go from one disgusting pervert to another. Just my luck."

"How grateful."

She flopped onto her back and turned her head so she was facing him. Then she tried to remember what she was going to say, because the sight of Patrick that close to her was enough to wash away every single coherent thought from her head.

"Thank you," she said, remembering. She sounded ridiculously monotonous, and bit her lip. "For bringing me here. And stuff."

She cringed.

_That was painful_.

And then she noticed that with him lying on his back and her lying on hers, their shoulders were practically touching. Almost. And the way he was looking at her, a look she couldn't place. And she was suddenly acutely aware of the way he smelled like – musky, and a combination of Autumn and something else Kat couldn't quite place. Something abstract, like an emotion, or a thought.

_I am going insane, _thought Kat, _How does someone smell like an emotion, or a thought?_

_I don't know. But he does. Somehow._

Patrick rolled onto his side so that he was facing (!) her (!). She was no doctor, but she was pretty sure that even Bianca would be able to figure out that her heart rate had just gone up 100 beats per minute. If only Bianca knew…

She wasn't sure how long she was going to last without losing her mind.

"You're very, extremely welcome," he said in a slow drawl with a roguish smile.

Kat reminded herself to breathe.

"Are you nervous?" he said, practically reading her mind.

She rolled her eyes, even though the obvious answer was _Yes! _

"Ohh yeah," she said sarcastically, and turned onto her side to face him even though she knew she might as well have committed mental suicide, "I'm absolutely terrified."

He looked positively delighted, and inched closer. "How about now."

"I feel like I'm going to faint," she said dryly.

In fact, she _did _feel like she was going to faint, but there was absolutely no need for Patrick to know that.

"And now?" he said, inching even closer.

_Oh jeez. He has to stop that before I do something stupid._

_Oh wait. I've already done something stupid._

"I will never recover from the trauma that you are causing me now," she said sardonically, "Please spare me."

_Oh crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Crap. Breathe in. Breathe out._

She took a breath.

_Why does he smell so good?_

"And now?" He moved even closer. Kat figured that in two more nerve-racking 'and now's they'd practically be kissing. She wondered why she had decided to sleep on her side facing him.

Then her brain decided that it would rather think about them kissing. She tried not to find that _distinct_ possibility _distinctly_ appealing.

_Don't you remember the last time you guys kissed? _

_Yeah, _she thought, a_nd it was fantastic until he started talking._

He slid one of his hands onto her waist. She couldn't stop herself from taking a sharp breath, which Patrick, of course, noticed. He smirked at her knowingly, and raised an eyebrow.

_What the hell is he doing? Okay breathe, breathe. Breathe._

Nevertheless, breathing was getting harder and harder as she noticed just how close they were, and then, again –

"How about," he lingered on the words, as if savoring them; "Now?"

She sighed, and folded. It wasn't worth the mental suffering. "A little bit. Maybe."

He paused, for a moment, looking satisfied.

_Oh my God. What is he going to do? Mandela would have a heart attack._

He looked at her curiously, as if there was some hidden code written on her face. She couldn't help but find the stare a bit hypnotizing. She tried to stay calm.

And then finally, after what seemed like ages, the words came one last time –

"How about now?"

But before she could reply – before she could even _think _about replying, for that matter – he had kissed her again, and all she could think about was him – all fire and heat and smoke and mirrors melded into one.


	6. Yesteryear

Patrick seemed unable to make up his mind. He moved his hand first from her waist to her leg, then back to her waist, then finally decided to thread it through her hair. After Logan, Kat felt like she was in Heaven.

A rather dark, rated R version of heaven, anyway.

Midway through the kiss, Kat pushed Patrick away rather reluctantly. "Patrick," she said sternly.

"Oh, here we go," groaned Patrick.

"No listen! I was just gonna say…that coping mechanism has to be shut down."

He raised an eyebrow. "Says the one caught making out with a guy she couldn't even remember the name of. Yeah, okay."

Kat blushed so hard she was pretty sure that Patrick could see it through the darkness. "That was a one-time thing. Plus, I was pretty drunk. And," she said teasingly, "Look where it got me."

"Okay, I'll shut it down," he said, and kissed her again.

_Damn it. I wanted to get some sleep tonight. _As if confirming this true but gloomy sentiment, her head picked that exact moment to start hurting again. She groaned and pushed Patrick away.

"Sorry, loverboy, but I need some sleep tonight."

"You're such a killjoy, you know that?"

"Ha-ha-ha. _Good night, Verona_."

"_Good night, Stratford," _Patrick replied in a not-too-bad imitation of Kat's voice.

Kat tried not to smile as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

***

_She was swinging in her backyard. It was one of those days that could've been taken straight from a clichéd scene in a book – the sky was the color of, well, a sky blue crayon, with two big, fluffy clouds floating lazily by. _

_Her mom came out of the house._

"_Mommy, push me!" she cried with the naïve enchantment only young children had, "Push me! Push me!"_

_Her mom laughed and gladly obliged. She was her mother in miniature – with her brown, wavy hair and chocolate eyes, a slender build and an attitude. She giggled at nothing in particular as her mother gave her three pushes until she felt like she was really, truly, flying. _

_A question occurred to her, like a wave that suddenly arises out of the ocean out of nowhere. "Mommy," she asked, "What's it like to kiss a boy?"_

_She said it with genuine innocence, curiousity drawn out from hundreds and hundreds of classic Disney movies with as many cheesy endings as there were Prince Charmings, as many Dwarves as there were Princesses, as many evil queens as there were fairy Godmothers, and as many talking anmals as there were humans. _

_Her mother looked at her the way only mothers can look at their children, a look that wanted to hold on to every moment but knew that every second brought them farther and farther apart. She smiled soft-heartedly. _

"_It depends," she said, "with whom. Sometimes it feels like heat. Like your blood has been replaced with fire, but in a good way." She laughed, realizing how absurd that sounded, and then continued. "Other times, it feels…slow. But in a good way, too, like the world isn't moving anymore. Like the world doesn't even _exist _anymore."_

_Her mother's eyes became unfocused, as if lost in distant memories._

_She was eight years old at the time, and she understood the words her mother had said about as much as she understood why the Wicked Witch of the West was wicked. The concept was clear as the pond in their backyard, but the feelings were locked in another box she had yet to open. _

_In fact, what Katherine Stratford would remember about the conversation with her mother wasn't anything her mother had said about kissing, it was the way she said it – her voice caressing each word like a jewel; her eyes lost in a crevice filled with adoration._

***

Memories don't last forever, like everyone says.

Sure, the really good ones did, and most of the really bad ones, too, but there were so many more that were gone before you could even miss them. And yeah, there were cameras. But as Kat knew all too well, there was so much you couldn't capture with a camera.

It wasn't surprising, really, that Kat had forgotten that particular memory. There were probably tons more buried in the deep, labyrinthine recesses of her mind, so Kat wasn't really sure why she was so upset about forgetting something like that.

She checked the clock next to her. 4:58, it read.

Kat wasn't a crier. Never had been, and she highly doubted she would ever be. It just wasn't something she did much, and when she did, it was never the sobbing featured so prominently in all those teen movies, where the girl is always comforted by some gallant male in some self-righteous haze.

But for some reason, this memory that floated to her amidst her sleep triggered something Kat hadn't felt in a long time – she really, truly, _insanely_ missed her mother.

She flinched as a single tear burned its way down her cheek, and then wiped it away. _No_, she willed herself, _Not here, not now, _no_. _

She turned away from Patrick.

It turned out that Patrick Verona was an outrageously light sleeper, because the next thing she knew he had sat up. "Hey. You okay? Need another aspirin?"

She tried to sound buoyant, and then cringed as her voice cracked. "I'm fine. Re-really."

He seemed to realize something was wrong. "Are you okay? The headache's not _that _bad, is it? If it is, I have a saw in my closet, we could always amputa-"

She tried to smile, but it turned out more like a grimace. "Really. I'm okay. I'm just gonna go back to sleep."

Patrick stared at her for another moment, and then seemed to give up and fell back onto the bed. "Alright," he said.

But she didn't sleep. She didn't even come close, if she was to be completely honest with herself. It was only 20 minutes later when she finally realized that unless she got some of it out of her system, she wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon.

_And now, _she thought, _I get ready for a catastrophe._

"Patrick?" she said quietly.

"Hm?" came the reply, almost instantaneous, and she realized that she hadn't been the only one lying awake thinking. She wondered what Patrick had been thinking about.

"Have you ever…" she paused, trying to think of something to say that didn't sound like a line straight out of the Titanic. "Have you ever really, really wanted to talk to someone, but not been able to?"

He didn't reply for a long while, and Kat was about to give it up as a lost cause when his voice drifted back to her. "Yes."

She nearly fell out of the bed. Patrick Verona, needing to talk to someone? "Who?!" she asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Another long pause. "My dad."

"Oh." She was speechless, and couldn't come up with something to say. Then Patrick said something for her.

"You?"

"Yeah. My mom."

_Ah, and now we have tell-alls with Patrick Verona, the resident serial killer. I can't believe this._

When Patrick spoke again, his voice was full of dark cynicism – scorn, even. "Sometimes I wish that I could talk to my mom too," he said, and then laughed acrimoniously before continuing, "But it probably wouldn't be your classic happy family reunion."

She couldn't believe her ears. "I…if you don't mind me asking – and you don't have to answer," she said quickly, "What happened? I mean, if--"

"No," he said, sounding as if he'd made up his mind a while ago, "It's fine. Not…Not all the rumors are completely false, Kat."

She was so stunned she spoke without thinking. "_Your mom's a Mexican drug dealer?!"_

At this, Patrick actually laughed. "Well," he said, amused, "I hadn't heard that one before, but no. She's not. I said some of them weren't completely false, not that they were completely true."

"Right," said Kat, quite mortified at what she'd said, "Sorry."

"She's just…in jail."

There were two things Kat couldn't believe at this point. Firstly was _what _Patrick was telling her. Secondly was _that _Patrick was telling her what he was telling her. Somehow, she intuited that it would be a bad idea to ask what she was in jail for doing.

"I'm so sorry," she said, and looked at him.

He was unreadable. He shrugged. "It's really nothing new."

"And your Dad?" she said, wondering if she was pressing the subject too much.

"He's…" Patrick hesitated. "He's with your mom. I live with my Uncle and my cousins."

Kat bit her lip. "Again…I'm really sorry. I never knew."

He shrugged again. "I don't exactly broadcast it to Fox News."

She laughed softly at this trace of his usual mordant self.

"So why the sudden curiousity?"

She swallowed, trying to decide whether to tell him.

_He's told you a shitload of stuff you didn't know. That couldn't have been easy for him. And besides, it's not ask if he's gonna 'broadcast it to Fox News.' _

_It just feels really personal._

_Yeah but so is the fact that his mother's in jail, and his dad's deceased. You aren't exactly the only one letting out some skeletons here._

She took a deep breath, and then told Patrick all about the dream. The way it had been a perfect day, the way the question had just come up out of nowhere, the way her mother had answered in another world. The way she felt irrationally bad about forgetting. The way she missed her mother.

Her one, greatest achievement that night was that after that single tear, she didn't cry. Her voice cracked and she felt like crap – really hungover crap, at that, but she didn't completely lose it.

"I'm sorry," Patrick said. "Although I'm sure you've heard that plenty before."

She nodded. "Yeah. We seem to be uncharacteristically apologetic to each other today," she said, and then laughed. Even though her head still felt like shit, she was still hung over, and she still missed her mother horribly, she didn't feel as bad.

"And besides," she continued, "I've sort of just … come to terms with it." She sobered up. "There are things you can't forget, though. Even though that sounds really tacky."

Patrick shrugged. "A lot of tacky things are true. He taught me how to ride a motorcycle, you know. Well, I was nine, so couldn't really try it out. But he rode one, and taught me the basic gist of it – go too fast and you're screwed--"

"Which you obviously didn't listen to--"

"—And from that day on, I swore that I was going to be as kickass as my dad and ride a motorcycle."

Kat smirked. "Well you have the motorcycle part down, who knows how long the kickass part will take."

Patrick pretended to be hurt. "Ouch. That hurts."

"I get my taste in music from my mom. And everyone who knew her says I act a lot like her, too."

"Ah," said Patrick excitedly, "So she was a bit less temperamental than you are, because no way was she as or more temperamental. That's not possible."

Kat took her pillow and whacked Patrick with it.

"See? Completely unnecessary," he said. "You could have fractured one of my rib."

Kat feigned interest. "Do vampires even _have _ribs?"

"Oh ha-ha-ha…"

Patrick pulled her close to him. "So," he said, a smirk returning to his face, "Which am I? The hot, blood-to-fire inducing one," he grinned, and Kat buried her face in his shoulder to hide the fact that she was blushing like crazy, "or the slow, make-the-world-stop-spinning type?"

She didn't say anything.

_Maybe if I just don't reply he'll assume I've fallen asleep or something. _

"Don't think you can get out of this one," he said, clearly enjoying what he was putting her through, "I want the answer to that before you go to sleep again."

She groaned into his arm. "You're the douche type."

"That's not one of the options."

"Fine," she said, and then paused, realizing just how embarrassing what she was about to say. "You, oh great one," she continued wryly, and then realized just how far her dignity was dropping, "Are neither fire nor time altering force, but a combination of the two greats. Can I go to sleep now?"

Patrick looked delighted, and Kat felt the sudden urge to wipe the smirk of his face.

In a friendly way, of course.

"Go to sleep. I have a feeling you'll be seeing me in your dreams anyways."

She groaned. "That was horrible."

"Good night, _Katherine_."

"_Good night, Patrick,_" she said, laughing.

It was only in a state of semi-consciousness, in which a great number of epiphanies seem to be had, when it came to her.

The smell she had so much trouble placing, the scent that flitted between abstract and abstruse. Once Kat realized what it was, it became quite obvious, really. It wasn't an emotion, and it certainly wasn't a thought.

It meant something different to everyone, like a piece of clay that molded itself to conform to what someone expected it to be. It was soft words, spoken with calm; small gifts, tied with a ribbon. It was a carton of ice cream, or a rerun of your favorite TV show. It was, Kat thought, as she drifted into sleep's warm grip, a smile, a laugh.

Patrick Verona, of all people, smelled like comfort.

---

A/N: I had a _ton _of fun writing this chapter. Please review and tell me what you think! :)

S


	7. Normality Is Overrated

It was so bright.

So painfully, unbelievably, impossibly bright.

Why the hell was it so bright?

She let out a groan, and opened her eyes. The light stabbed at her like daggers, and her head felt like it was under two tons of rocks, but she was warm and comfortable and content. She wasn't sure how she could be content while her head hurt like a bitch, but gradually, memories of the night before returned to her.

_Patrick._

She looked at the clock.

_9:43. Which means I've been sleeping for like five hours. Which is not nearly enough when you're hung over and have a head ache and feel like crap._

She flipped back on to her side and prepared to go back to sleep, when—

"Good morning," said the smiling face of Patrick Verona.

_He's still here. Damn it, there goes my extra sleep._

She groaned. "Not really."

"How are you feeling?"

"Hung over," she managed.

"No surprise there," he replied wryly. He climbed out of bed – Kat couldn't help but stare just a _tiny _bit – and left the room again.

He came back a few seconds later with another aspirin and a glass of water. She took it appreciatively. "Thanks. What a life saver."

"Aren't I?"

"I was talking about the aspirin," she said mockingly.

He turned his back, muttering something that sounded vaguely like "Clearly, not hungover enough."

Kat groaned. "I'm never drinking again."

"But you're so kind when you're hungover!" Patrick said infuriatingly, "You can't hit me with things."

Kat debated whether or not to throw a pillow at him, but decided that it would take too much effort. "I liked you better at three AM," she said.

Patrick smirked. "More like what I was _doing _at 3 AM."

"I'm going to kick your ass."

Their bickering was interrupted by a sudden outburst of music, coming from somewhere beyond Kat's range of vision. She groaned.

"Kat…I think that's your phone."

"Can you give it to me?"

He rolled her eyes, and climbed out of bed again. He picked up Kat's bag, and began shifting through it.

"Let's see. Pepper spray…tear gas….What _is _this?...Oh, here we go."

He pulled out her phone and put it on speaker, tossing it onto the bed.

"Hello?" Kat said groggily.

Bianca's chirpy, excited voice filtered through the line. "Kat! How are you?"

Kat tried to focus on the phone, and not Patrick – who was now shifting through his closet trying to find something to wear. She took a deep breath.

"I'm…fine? Hungover. But fine."

"So…" Bianca said.

"So?" Kat replied, starting to get annoyed.

"How was your night with Paaaaatrick?"

Kat sat up straight, horrified. Patrick turned around to look at Kat, his eyebrows raised. He smirked at her knowingly.

"Bianca," she said, "Stop tal--"

"I want _all _the juicy details," she continued, while Kat grew more and more mortified by the moment, "And I promise I won't tell Dad anything. So…"

"Bianca!"

"—Did you guys make out again? Please tell me you did, and that I can _finally _date. Besides," she said, her voice turning wicked and sing-songy, "We both know how much you enjoyed that the first time!"

Kat couldn't believe her ears. "Bianca," she said through gritted teeth, but before she could complete her sentence, Patrick cut her off.

"You're on speaker," he said.

There was a beat of silence.

"In that case," said Bianca, realizing what she'd done, "I think I'll go. ByeKatseeyoulaterbye!"

Kat flopped onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow.

"I'm going to kill her."

"There's no need to--"

"I'm going to kill her."

"Well," he said, walking out of the room with a bundle of clothes in his arms, "You should come down and eat breakfast then. You can't murder someone on an empty stomach. I would know."

***

Five minutes later, Kat walked down the stairs with her bag in tow, compiling a list of rumours in her head.

_He does not have a collection of skulls. Or ears, or fingernails. He does not live in the wild with wolves. He doesn't have murder weapons under his bed, and his house is definitely not haunted. It looks just like any other house belonging to any other citizen._

She rolled her eyes to herself, stepping onto the first floor. Immediately she was greeted by the irresistible smell of bacon and eggs.

She turned a corner and saw Patrick, and three people who she assumed were his uncle, and two cousins. They looked remarkably normal, she thought, and then smirked at what Mandela's reaction would be when she found out.

"_He was obviously putting on a façade just so he could fool you_,_" _Kat pictured Mandela saying.

"You're down," Patrick said dryly, "Good thing, too. Turns out my uncle bought an entire farm's worth of eggs and bacon."

Kat sat down, feeling awkward. "Thank you, but you really didn't have to go through all this trouble."

"It was no problem," said a middle aged man, and Kat immediately saw the resemblance between Patrick and his uncle. They had the same dark, curly hair, and looked quite similar even though his uncle looked much older.

To her left sat a striking brunette.

_Ah, yes_, Kat thought, _Good-looking high school teenage guys have good looking cousins. Go figure._

"I'm Sophie," she said, smiling at Kat. "I've heard so much about you."

Kat raised an eyebrow and shot Patrick a look. "Have you now?"

Sophie laughed. "Aren't you the one who threatened to taser him, kicked trash on him, stabbed him in the foot, stole his stuff, and got motor oil on him?"

Kat nearly choked on her food – which was delicious, for the record.

She looked at Patrick, who was smirking at her.

Sophie continued, undeterred. "Then again, I've also heard 'only person I know who could turn her car into a biodiesel, including the idiots in auto shop', 'has a hell of a lot of nerve', and 'only person I can have a decent conversation with without them running away.'"

Kat returned Patrick's smirk, but he was now glaring at Sophie.

"Oh," she said brightly, "And the phrase 'obsessed with me' came up a couple times."

Patrick's other cousin, who had been sitting there silently until now, snorted. "A couple times is an understatement," he informed Kat rather matter-of-factly, "More like a couple _hundred _times. I'm Zach, by the way."

Zach was, no doubt about it, the odd one out at the table. He had fine, blonde hair and looked like the type who spent his time surfing and avoiding school. Still, he had a friendly air about him, and Kat had to admit to herself that Patrick's family was about as intimidating as a lost puppy.

Kat glared at Patrick. "I am _not _obsessed with you," she said.

He nodded at her. "Of course not."

"Alright, children," his uncle said good-naturedly, "I'm going out. Try not to burn down the house or get arrested."

Patrick, Sophie and Zach rolled their eyes at the exact same time, a fact that Kat couldn't help but notice. She smiled to herself.

_Notice, _she thought, _that he doesn't tell Sophie not to get pregnant. Or that sex is the root of all evil. _

"He seems nice," Kat said, after he had left. "Better than my dad."

"What's he like?" Zach inquired.

"Protective. Don't-go-near- guys protective. Every time I come back from going out, I have to go through five hundred tests," she said, rolling her eyes. "For my own good. Although he's a lot harder on my sister."

"You have a sister?"

"Yeah. She's…not like me."

"But," Patrick interrupted, "Your sister knows that you're obsessed with me."

"We are _not _going back to this," Kat said.

Sophie shot them both covert, sly glances. "It's alright, Kat. He wouldn't be making such a big deal out of this if he wasn't obsessed with you." She winked at Kat, while Patrick looked royally pissed off.

Kat laughed. "So why haven't I seen you two at school?" she wondered out loud.

"Zach goes to St. John's. And I go to St. Mary's."

Kat raised an eyebrow and Patrick. "I assume Catholic school didn't fit you?"

He looked defensive. "They didn't allow motorcycles!" he said, faking outrage, while everyone else laughed.

Kat was suddenly aware of her phone ringing – again. She checked it.

_Bianca AGAIN. _

She answered it, making sure not to put it on speaker. "Yeah?"

"When are you going to be home? I got a ride back from Dawn, but it sucks being alone here. Plus, it's like noon. Do you want me to order pizza for you?"

"No," Kat said, startled at how fast time had passed, "I'm eating here, but I'll be home soon."

"Alright. Am I on speaker?"

Kat winced at the memory. "No. So if you'd like to say anything incriminating, please do it now."

"Please don't kill me when you get home."

Kat rolled her eyes. "We'll see. And I have to go. Bye."

She clicked her phone off and shook her head. "I have to go, guys. Thanks for the food. See you on Monday, Patrick."

"I can't wait," he said sarcastically, tossing her her keys.

"Good bye, _Verona_," she said, walking out of the house, and despite herself, smiled.

***

A/N: I'm not actually sure how this one turned out. Review and let me know what you think :)

S


	8. Blissfully Irrelevant Does Not Exist

"Okay Kat, I know you're probably not happy about the speaker thing," said Bianca the moment Kat walked through the door, "But I mean, Patrick wasn't _upset _about it, was he? Besides, he probably already knew--"

Kat tossed her keys onto the kitchen counter and cut her off. "Lucky for you," she said, "I left my knife at Patrick's house. Congratulations. You live to see another day."

She hurried down the hall, trying to get to her room before Bianca realized that she was off the hook and could continue asking Kat about her night.

It didn't work.

"Oh," said Bianca, following Kat up the stairs. Kat felt a fleeting – extremely, _extremely _fleeting – rush of sympathy for Chastity, who Bianca followed around like a dog. "In that case…tell me what happened. Everything."

Kat turned around at her bedroom door. "Okay, well, I slept. I slept. I slept. I had a huge headache, and he got me an aspirin. Then I slept some more, and had breakfast with his family – and for the record, no one tried to murder me. Then I left. Now I'm here. Good bye," she said, trying to close the door, but Bianca was quicker than that, and edged into the room with Kat.

"There's no way all you did was sleep. Plus, if that was true, you wouldn't be so freaked out about Patrick hearing what I said."

Bianca shot Kat a 'try-and-argue-with-that-look.'

Kat sighed. "Alright, fine. We may or may not – _in the name of feminism _– ended up sleeping together."

Bianca stared.

"No, Bianca, don't be ridiculous. I didn't mean it like _that_," Kat said, realizing just how many ways her statement could be misconstrued. "Just…you know. I mean, it was a big bed! And I wasn't going to let him play the some noble gentleman who sleeps on the floor just so _I _can have my comfort. It was perfectly platonic!"

Bianca raised an eyebrow.

"Well it was platonic until…"

"Until?" Bianca prompted.

"Okay, well we kissed. But that's _it_. And it probably didn't mean anything anyways, I mean we were both really emotional. Or was that after? I don't remember. Plus, I was probably still half-drunk from that stupid party. And we were probably still half asleep."

"So basically, you're telling me," Bianca said slowly, "That you, 'in the name of feminism', climbed into bed with this guy--" –Kat winced—"And made out with him--" –Kat bit her lip—"But it didn't mean anything. Yes Kat, that makes total sense," Bianca said, rolling her eyes.

"Well if you say it like that--"

"—I'm completely right," Bianca finished for Kat. "And if you were sober if you can remember any of what happened, which you clearly do."

Kat opened her mouth to interrupt, but Bianca kept talking.

"Now what was that you said about being emotional?"

Kat winced. Bianca could be a stubborn force of nature when she wanted to be, and clearly she wanted to be one right now. On top of it all, they had arrived at the part of the conversation that Kat dreaded. How was she supposed to explain that she'd told some very, _very_ personal details about their mother to Patrick Verona?

She sighed. "It all started with this dream."

Bianca nodded slowly. "O…kay, but this better not be NC-17, because when I said juicy details, I meant--"

"It wasn't about Patrick!" said Kat impatiently. "It involved mom."

Bianca raised her eyebrows and sobered up. "Go on."

"So anyways, I was eight. And …I think I must have watched Cinderella too many times that week, because I asked mom what it was like to kiss a boy. And she gave me this long response about heat and fire and the world stopping, and it just seemed like she was lost in her memories. I don't know where this came from, but it just came to me, I guess."

Bianca sighed. "That's depressing. The only way to remember mom is to get really drunk and fall into an alcohol induced sleep. Awesome."

Kat grimaced. "So then I couldn't sleep, and me and Patrick just started …talking."

"…About?"

"Well he told me some stuff about his…private life, I guess. And I told him some stuff about mom."

Bianca looked shocked. "Kat," she said apprehensively, "That's really…"

"Personal, I know. But I mean, he told me some really, really personal stuff."

Bianca looked at her. "I guess it is your choice. And I'm assuming I shouldn't even bother asking about what he told you."

"Probably not, no."

"Well," Bianca said, trying her best to smile effervescently, "At least you didn't have sex, right?"

Kat glared.

"Okay well I need you to do me a favor."

"Here it comes…"

"It's just that Tommy asked me to go out on Friday. And well, you know, I can't go out until you go out. So…would you and Patrick like to accompany us on Friday? Please, _please _Kat, just do this for me! I'm really excited about this!"

Bianca was basically doing the equivalent of groveling, and Kat found it hard to refuse. "Who's Tommy?"

"Reserve quarterback."

"And Chastity," Kat said, surprised, "Is okay with you dating her boyfriend's competition?"

"Chastity," Bianca said harshly, "Is actually a really good person. I can date him as long as he's not starting."

Kat rolled her eyes. "I'm not promising anything."

"So when dad gets home tonight," Bianca said elatedly – not to mention completely ignoring Kat's non-guarantee – and I ask him to go out, you'll say that there's someone you'll go out with too?"

"I didn't say that."

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" Bianca said, disregarding Kat's less-than-enthusiastic reply in favor of a "Yes", "I'm so happy!"

She practically bounced out of the room.

Kat groaned and rolled onto her bed.

***

The problem, Kat thought, wasn't that she didn't have feelings for Patrick. It was pretty obvious to her by now that she did, and that she would have to come to terms with that. The problem was that she wasn't sure what Patrick thought of _her_.

Of course, there was that kiss from the other day that had led to the big fight. And the night before could hardly be considered purely friendly. But Kat couldn't just shirk the possibility that Patrick just wanted a quick hook up, even though she'd made it perfectly clear that she wasn't that type of person.

Somehow, Kat couldn't see Patrick as the type of person who would do that to her _twice_. And besides, Kat thought, it was highly improbable that Patrick told _everyone _he made out with about his past. Then again, not everyone he made out with had been drunk to an extreme point and had to be held overnight at his house.

It was all too complicated for Kat to figure out, but there was no way in hell she was going to ask Patrick Verona what she truly meant to him. She pictured the conversation in her head:

"_Hi Patrick," she would say._

"_Kat," he would reply as a greeting, probably followed by a snide 'Couldn't stay away' or something of the sort, accompanied by his trademark smirk._

"_So," she would say casually, "We sort of made out on Friday night. In your bed."_

_Patrick would nod at her and raise his eyebrows. "Where are you going with this?"_

"_What do I mean to you?"_

Kat cringed and snapped out of the imaginary conversation, which had become too painful to envision any longer.

That was the problem with romance novels nowadays, Kat thought dully; they made it far, far too easy. Relationships just happened, and in real life, relationships did _not _just happen. They involved arguments, and screaming, and kicking lockers, and, Kat thought wryly, a great amount of drinking.

That was all without factoring her father, who, come to think of it, was a rather large factor. What he would say when he found out that Kat was dating a motorcycle riding, rather good-looking guy who was the subject of a rather absurd number of rumors, Kat didn't even want to think about.

And yet, her father was going to have to find out some time. Some time meaning tonight, because Bianca – Kat rolled her eyes – was going to tell him. Granted, he wouldn't find out about the motorcycle, or the rumors, but with the ferocity that her father attacked most of their dates, it wouldn't be long before he found out.

And this was all under the assumption that Patrick would even want to date her, leading her right back to square one.

Kat sighed, thinking about how lucky Bianca was with her naïve, charmed, popularity-obsessing life.

***

The hour of Kat's imminent demise was lurking.

Her dad had arrived, and now, under the façade of being a normal family (whatever that was), they were all sitting around the dinner table eating.

Bianca shot nervous glances back and forth between Kat and her father. Finally, she put down her fork rather dramatically.

"Dad," she said, "I have news."

"You _are not pregnant_," her father said, suddenly horrified.

Kat rolled her eyes. Normal family…not likely.

"No Dad," Bianca said patiently, "I'm not pregnant. It's just…this guy asked me out."

Her father shook his head."You know the rules. No dating until--"

"I know," Bianca rushed, seemingly unable to control her excitement any longer, "Buuuuut…" She glanced at Kat frantically.

Kat looked despairingly at Bianca, and then grit her teeth. "Dad. I think I might have found someone who I could possibly, maybe go out with on Friday. Perhaps."

Her dad looked stunned. Bianca looked triumphant.

"Well," her dad said, ostensibly reformulating his game plan, "You two can go out on Friday."

Bianca looked like she would start crying tears of joy any moment. "Really?! _Thank you thank you thank you thank--"_

"**If**," her dad said, while Bianca's smile faded a small bit, "You two go _together_. Same place. Same time. You leave together, you come back together. And Kat, I want you to bring your taser and pepper spray." He smiled and cracked his knuckles menacingly.. "Just in case. And, before either of you leave the house on Friday, I want a word with both of your dates."

Kat immediately realized the danger in her (!) father (!) talking to Patrick, and Tommy, but Bianca seemed too excited to care.

Kat groaned.

_And there I was, thinking that the situations reality TV stars get themselves into are purely staged, when I've gotten myself into one without even trying!_


	9. Curfew? What Curfew?

"I can't believe this," Mandela said that Monday at lunch. "I can't believe you're going to go out with Patrick Verona."

Kat winced, thinking about all the things that she'd already done with Patrick Verona the other night that she'd neglected to mention to Mandela. "Well," she said, "It's not confirmed yet. He could say no. Or I could back out. Or I could get lucky and Bianca could decide that Tommy isn't worth going out with. Not likely, but I can hope."

"I _can't believe _you're going to go out with Patrick Verona."

Kat stared at her. "Did you listen to anything I said?"

"I can't believe it."

Kat groaned. "I was at his house on Saturday," she said, trying to sound as casual as possible for shock effect.

She wasn't disappointed. Mandela looked like she'd just choked on something and then been saved by a flying hippopotamus. When she spoke again, it was in hushed tones. "Did he kidnap you?" she asked, "Oh my God, how did you get away."

"…No he didn't kidnap me."

"Then what happened?"

Kat bit her lip. "It's really not that exciting. I got drunk and my sister can't drive. He temporarily held me hostage at his house," she said, but hastily reworded the statement after seeing the expression on Mandela's face. "Not, like, _hostage _hostage. _I was exaggerating!_"

Mandela looked shocked. "Wow. You are _so _brave."

***

"I need to talk to you," Kat said, standing at Patrick's locker. She couldn't believe what she was about to do.

"That's never good," he said. He didn't take his eyes off of the inside of his locker

Kat rolled her eyes. "Seriously."

"Okay. Shoot."

"Bianca wants to go out on Friday."

Patrick stared at her. "With me?"

Kat flinched. "No, that's not what I meant. She wants to go out with Tommy."

"Okay."

"And my dad won't let her go out unless-" --she gritted her teeth—"—I do too. As in, go with her. And stay with her. And taser Tommy if he does anything mildly resembling physical affection."

Patrick nodded slowly and closed his locker. "Really?" he said in a tone that clearly implied disbelief.

"Yes. I mean if you don't want to, I can tell Bianca and she can call--"

He shook his head. "That's not what I meant. I meant, is that the only reason you want us to go out on Friday?"

Kat tried to think. _If I say yes, I run the risk of making him think that Friday night was a mistake, which is bad if he has feelings for me. But if I say no, I run the risk of him not liking me and making everything awkward. _

Kat clamped her mouth shut and didn't say anything.

"So you tell me that you aren't the type of person to just make out with someone," he continued, "And then make out with me. And then ask to go out _just_ so that your sister can, too."

He shook his head. "I'll be there at seven. But it'd be nice to know whether I'm going for you--" – he raised an eyebrow – "or Bianca."

***

_Well that_, thought Kat, slumping onto her bed later that day after school, _was mildly disastrous_.

She groaned into her pillow.

"Kat," said a chirpy voice, and with a sinking heart, Kat realized that she'd forgotten to close her bedroom door. "I need to talk to – are you okay?"

Bianca had clearly walked into the room. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," said Kat. She sat up and smiled brightly. "I'm just peachy."

Bianca rolled her eyes at sat at the foot of the bed. "Ha. That's funny. If you were just peachy, you'd be making fun of yearbook photos. Or writing letters to some animal rights group or something."

Kat glared at her sister.

"Talking to Patrick didn't go too well, did it," Bianca said. She looked truly sympathetic – and Kat couldn't suppress an ephemeral rush of affection for her sister.

"It didn't go _bad_, per se," said Kat, trying to reason with both herself and Bianca, "It just…" she sighed. "Didn't go how I expected it to. He basically asked me why I was asking him, but he left before I could say anything. Not that I tried too hard."

"Well…was he angry?"

"I don't know. I couldn't tell, he was unreadable. He's _always _unreadable. I hate that he's unreadable," she said.

Bianca sighed and looked down. "Well…do you want me to cancel?"

Kat blinked, shocked. "What? No, no, no. You don't have to do that. Patrick said he'd go."

"Yeah but if both of you are just moping around through the entire thing, we might as well all stay in. Plus, I won't be able to have much fun if you're depressed through the whole thing."

Kat bit her lip, her expression softening.

_Okay, Bianca is being considerate and…sensitive towards others. What the hell is happening? I mean, what did she have for lunch today?_

"I—Thanks, Bianca. But you don't have to do that. I'll talk to Patrick tomorrow."

Bianca nodded. "Alright. Talk to you later then," she said, standing up and leaving.

***

_She was floating in a pool of water. There was a woodpecker above her, Lord knows why._

_The woodpecker flew down to her and began pecking on the water. The places where he tapped it turned solid, and sounded strangely like hollow wood._

_Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap._

Kat groaned. _Turn it off._

_Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap._

She rolled over, trying to get away from the noise.

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap._

_TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP._

She groaned and blinked groggily. She sat up, confused. The clock next to her read 11:49. She wondered why the hell she was having dreams about floating in water and woodpeckers with the magical ability to turn water into wood.

It was like some sick, twisted version of the Bible.

_And now we're turning dreams into religious signs. I am losing my mind._

She was so flustered that she almost didn't hear the tapping at her window – this time _real_.

_Holy crap. I'm going to get kidnapped._

The curtains were all drawn, so whoever it was outside couldn't see her – but it also meant she couldn't see them. She felt a rush of panic, and then remembered the taser in her backpack. She got it out and slowly – and with her breath held – crept to the window.

Here's what she envisioned in her mind: she would, in one fluid motion, draw the curtain, point the taser at whoever was outside her window, and then yell for her father.

Here's what actually happened: she, in one fluid motion, drew the curtain, pointed the taser at the person outside the window, _saw _the person outside her window, and nearly fell over – banging her elbow on the windowsill.

For a moment she thought she was still dreaming, but then her elbow started to ache – like, _really _ache – so she had to admit that it was really real life.

She shook her head and opened the window.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she whispered. If her dad found out about this, she was beyond screwed. She shut the window and closed the curtain again. "Did Patrick tell you to come here?"

Sophie looked at her like she was insane. "Are you kidding me? If Patrick finds out about this, I'm screwed. So please, for the love of God, don't tell him."

She winced. "Alright, I won't tell him. Now _explain!_"

Kat tried to mentally gauge all the possible reasons why Patrick's cousin was standing at her window.

"I sort of wanted to talk."

Kat stared at her. "You snuck out of your house to mine at half past eleven and nearly gave me a heart attack because you 'sort of wanted to talk'?!"

"It seemed like an okay idea at the time. No one's ever snuck into your room before?"

Kat sighed. "Believe me, if you'd ever met my father, you'd understa--"

She was interrupted by _another _set of taps at the window. She glanced at Sophie, who looked just as confused as her.

Kat pursed her lips and opened the window again.

"Sophie?" said Patrick Verona, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Kat groaned. "My room has turned into a refugee shelter. Perfect."

---

A/N: As I was writing this, I had pretty much no idea where I was going with it. I think it turned out alright, and I actually do have something in mind for the next chapter now, I'm just not sure whether I should write it. I might end up deleting this chapter, depending on how the next one goes. But in the mean time, tell me what you think :).


	10. Out Of Focus

"What the hell are _you _doing here?" Kat whispered furiously, "Is terrorizing people in the dead of night a family thing or something?"

Patrick looked at her calmly. "I needed to talk to you."

Kat stared at him. "And it couldn't wait 7 hours until school tomorrow?"

Patrick shrugged. "No one's ever snuck into your house bef--"

"That's exactly what your cousin said!"

Right on cue, Sophie said, "Patrick, Dad's going to kill you!"

He glared at her. "Me?! He's going to kill you, too! At least I have something I want to talk to her _about! _What's your excuse?"

"Well maybe," she said, shooting Patrick a glare, "I have something to talk to her about too."

They seemed to have forgotten that a rapidly panicking Kat was there.

_If Dad finds out about this, he will take away my door and nail boards to the windows. He'll never let me out of the house again! More importantly, what the hell do they have to talk to me about? _

Kat tried to tune out the argument going around her, but it was hard as hell, considering that they sounded like they were arguing about a major catastrophe.

"Oh yeah?" Patrick shot back, "What, exactly, do you need to discuss with a person you've met _once_ over breakfast that's _so important _that involved sneaking out of the house?!"

Sophie looked at him. "You."

Kat nearly fell off the bed. "You know," she said, "I'm going to go to the bathroom now. Try and keep it down. If my dad wakes up, there are no words to describe how, utterly screwed we are."

Kat went into the bathroom and shut the door, taking deep breaths. What she _hadn't _anticipated was the door being highly un-soundproof. Or the fact that she could hear everything they were saying, whether she wanted to or not.

"Sophie," Patrick was saying, "_What the hell were you going to talk to Kat about_?!"

Kat cringed. At least, she thought, they weren't shouting. Thank God, she thought, her father's room was all the way down the hall – Kat smiled guiltily as she remembered him saying that he needed to keep a closer eye on Bianca than Kat.

"I already _told you_! I needed to talk to her about _you_!"

Kat's head was spinning. _Sophie snuck into my house to talk to me about Patrick. Patrick snuck into my house to talk about…? _

What the hell was going on?

"Oh," Patrick retorted, his tone practically overrunning with sarcasm, "Because I'm mute and can't do that myself."

Sophie narrowed her eyes. "Because that worked _so well _last time."

Kat winced at the memory.

"You know," Sophie said with such ferocity that Kat was immediately reminded of the way Patrick spoke when he was really, really angry, "She is the _first girl _you've had over who I've actually heard you mention again, after! And I know for a fact that you're not going to be able to talk that through with _anyone_, much less _her!_"

Kat's heart sped up, and she bit her lip. She wasn't sure how to respond – there was confusion, as always, and a small bit of apprehension. She couldn't wrap her mind around it. She was being compared to other girls – other girls that hadn't stayed for breakfast. Who'd –

It hit her, then, what Sophie was talking about. Kat felt a combination of horror and a strange, warped desire to laugh.

Sophie thought they'd slept together. Kat groaned.

Patrick sounded different when he spoke again. "Yeah, well, she was hungover as fuck, I wasn't going to just kick her out of the house."

"Really, Patrick? Is that the only reason?"

Kat held her breath, asking the same question.

Patrick didn't answer.

Kat shook her head and opened the door of the bathroom as loudly as possible. It worked – they both turned to stare at her.

"Today," she said, "I learned that my bathroom door is not soundproof."

They both cringed, and Kat felt a tiny amount of satisfaction at the horror on their faces.

Kat turned to face Sophie. "I know what you think we did that night," she said, shaking her head, "But we didn't do that. It. Anything."

She frowned. "Well. We did _something_, but not--" – she gestured a bit wildly – "—_that_."

Kat tried to focus on Sophie and not look, speak to, or even _think _about Patrick. "And besides, you're looking at this way out of perspective. This is high school, not 'One Tree Hill'. It's not as if the world is going to end if--"

Sophie cut her off. "You two are just like each other, you know that? All about _perspective_ and how it's just _high school _and how none of this actually _matters _and how everyone takes everything too _seriously _and how 'it's only dramatic if you make it dramatic'.

"Well yeah, okay, some people do see things out of perspective, and, yeah, some people are too serious about things that they should just let go of, but at least those people can say they truly know what life is like! You guys have obviously never heard the phrase 'carpe diem'!

"At least people who make everything dramatic and over the top _get_ to be happy – actually _happy – _when something good happens, just because they've been upset. You can't actually be happy unless you've been truly upset, just like you can't actually feel love if you've never been hurt, or cried, or died inside. So yeah, _maybe _perspective is good, and maybe I'm just being an ridiculous here – so yeah, go ahead and call me an idiot and a drama queen – but if everything in life is just to get you closer to dying, you _might as well _make the lows as low as possible just so the highs are worth getting to."

She stared at them both for a minute and then climbed out of the window.

Kat shook her head and sat down on the bed. She lay down, her lower legs dangling over the edge. 

How, she thought, was she supposed to respond to a speech that put into words everything she'd been trying to escape from all her life?

It was funny – in a rather non-amusing way – _ironic _would be a better word, how when someone close to you died, everything was put in perspective _for _you. There wasn't anything you had to do – there was nothing you _could _do.

She bit her lip. "Patrick?"

He was just standing there – where he'd been after Sophie had left – looking at her with a curious expression on his face. She felt a pang of appreciation at the fact that he hadn't left.

He looked at her. "Yeah?"

"This seems to happen a lot, doesn't it?"

"What, us ending up alone together in the middle of the night?" He smirked at her.

She looked at him and smiled, and then asked the question that she'd been itching to ask for ages. "Was what she said true?"

Patrick's smirk faded. He seemed to consider something for a moment, and then, slowly, said, "She said a lot of things."

"Was any of it true?"

"Yes."

"Was all of it true?"

She held her breath, and – even though she'd never admit it – crossed her fingers behind her back.

There was a slight pause.

"Yes."

Kat blinked, wondering whether or not to ask one last question. She'd been lucky so far – and if she really didn't like his answer, there was always the taser, she joked to herself. She closed her eyes and jumped._ Carpe diem, right?_

"Was everything _you_ said true?"

There was a longer, more agonizing silence.

"No."

She frowned. "What wasn't?"

He sighed. "If I answer this, will you answer a question of mine?"

Kat groaned. "Fine. What was the lie?"

"I told her I just let you stay because you were hungover."

Realization, Kat thought, could be two things. It could be like dropping a boulder off a cliff – fast, harsh and practically knocking you off your feet. But this time, realization felt different. It was like sand in an hourglass, filtering through slowly, or like a jigsaw puzzle, coming together at once.

Happiness could be like that too, she thought, setting in slowly with the realization. She turned to Patrick and smiled.

He raised an eyebrow. "Your turn to be put in the examination seat," he said, and smirked.

Kat laughed softly. "Here we go."

"Were you surprised?"

Kat blinked, confused. "About what?"

"My answers." He shook his head. "To your many, many, _endless, infinite _questions."

Kat rolled her eyes. "I…was surprised, yes."

Patrick nodded, and then dropped on to the bed with her, his legs also over the edge. Kat felt as if they were on some misplaced, upside down and sideways swingset.

"That thing you said earlier today," Kat said suddenly.

"What thing I said earlier today?"

"That thing…" Kat hesitated. "About whether you were coming for Bianca or me."

Patrick nodded. "Yeah?"

"Unfortunately," she said, and then thought for a moment. "Bianca's already got someone coming for her. She'll be…" she coughed suggestively – "occupied that night."

Patrick smiled. "Shame," he said, "I guess I'll have to settle for you."

She sat up and threw a pillow at him.

"Aren't we a bit old for pillow fights?"

She sighed, and, unwilling to argue with him, changed the topic. "Your cousin."

"What about her?"

"Do you think she's angry with me? Or you?"

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Probably not. She's usually like that – she wants a career in the performing arts, and, let's face it, has some dramatic tendencies. So yeah, she probably meant what she said," Patrick continued, "But she's probably not upset. In fact, she's probably thinking to herself right now about what a great speech that was."

Kat raised her eyebrows.

"And," Patrick acknowledged, "She's usually right."

Kat laughed. "Damn her," she said.

"I'll tell her you said that."

Kat scoffed at him and climbed into bed again, trying to salvage the rest of what _would _have been a sleep-filled night. She tried not to feel a tingle of pleasant surprise when she felt Patrick slide in next to her.

"You are such a jerk," she said, as he threw an arm lazily around her.

"I know," he said.

"I can't believe you."

"I know."

"I hate you…" she trailed off, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging in midair.

There was a pause.

"That's a shame."

Another pause.

Kat hesitated, and then finished her thought. "Sometimes."

Patrick smiled. "We're even, then."

***

"Kat."

_Someone was saying her name. _

She groaned.

"Kat."

Whoever it was shook her.

"No…stop…sleep," she mumbled.

"Oh my God, you're dad is coming," she heard the voice say.

She sat up suddenly, desire to sleep gone. Various escape plans ran through her head.

Patrick Verona smirked at her. "You would wake up when I say that."

She groaned. "Whattimeisit?"

"Half past five," he said.

"Why am I awake? Why are _you _awake? I swear to God, Patrick, I'm going to be falling asleep in all my classes today. If I fail my math test because of you, Verona, there will be hell to pay. I mean that!" she added, when Patrick opened his mouth – no doubt to make a snide comment – "I do!"

"Hold your horses. I just woke you up to say good morning. And bye."

Kat shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "You're leaving?"

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "Well," he said, "If you'd like, I can stay for breakfast. Me and your family could have a nice little chat over breakfast. Your dad and I could probably talk about the day's newspaper, his job, oh, and _why the hell I was in his daughter's room--"_

Kat laughed rather psychotically.

"Get out."

---

A/N: This was a tricky chapter to write – much like chapter six – because we've never really seen Kat or Patrick get actually emotional. There was a tiny hint of it in Light My Fire and Dance, Little Sister, but not that much, so I'm worried that I may have been OOC at times.

Anyways, thanks for all the comments; it's incredibly motivating :)


	11. In True Shakespearean Tradition

"Good morning," said a husky voice once she got to her locker that morning.

She rolled her eyes at turned around to face a smirking Patrick Verona. "Morning."

"Sleep well?"

She made a face at him. "Oh, yeah. Except two idiots decided to climb into my room at midnight. We got into some argument about perspective and what not."

She closed her locker and headed off to first period Algebra. Patrick wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back.

She glared at him. "Yes, Mr. Congeniality?"

"About Friday."

"What about Friday? I'm going to be late for my test, Patric--"

"Oh, calm down. I just want to know where we're going."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Dinner? Yes, I know," she continued after seeing Patrick's face, "Totally cliché, but face it, this was _Bianca's _idea. You're lucky we're even going out on Friday."

Patrick let her go. "Have fun with your test. Try not to fall asleep."

She smirked. "And if I do, whose fault is that?"

He didn't miss a beat. "Yours, for letting me in."

***

The algebra test was a disaster. In between questions about conic sections and axis' of symmetry, her mind kept drifting off to Patrick and Sophie. Showing up at her window. At 12 AM.

She thought about how they'd now "slept together" – in the not-_as-_dirty sense – and tried not to feel completely unlike herself. It didn't work, of course, and her mind seemed to feel an irresistible pull to Friday. She didn't want to call it a "date" – which sounded like something to describe two people who shared interests, could have discussions about feelings and whatnot, and spent relatively little time arguing.

She and Patrick, on the other hand, had the mutual interest of scathing sarcasm, would rather be caught dead than have a deep discussion about their "feelings" – half the student body didn't think Patrick even _had _feelings – and spent pretty much all their time bickering.

The cultivation of all these things was a B- on her algebra test – and that was an _optimistic _estimate – and a really, really bad mood.

"How'd the test go?" Patrick asked her during lunch.

She glared at him. "Thanks to you, horribly."

"I'm sure you didn't do that bad."

"I'm sure I did."

Patrick sighed. "I can't say that I'm sorry I snuck out last night, but I'm sorry you didn't do well on your test."

"Me too."

"So…" Patrick tried to put on a bright smile. "Anything I should know about your dad?"

Kat winced. There was so much to know about her dad that there was no way she could give Patrick a "How To Calm A Paranoid OB/GYN-101" class over the course of one lunch period.

"Well," she said, "We're going to take my car, because my dad and motorcycles don't mix. And I'll just drop you off at my house and you can go home on your bike."

"Do I have to?" He smirked. "I could stay the ni--"

"Great idea!" Kat interrupted, "Then we can watch birthing videos and talk about the evils of sex!"

Patrick blinked. "Never mind."

Kat smiled brightly. "Oh wait! My dad'll probably make us do that before the date anyways. He said he wanted to have a 'chat' with both you and Tommy."

Patrick sighed. "I can hardly wait."

***

Time, as everyone knew, passed slowly as hell when you were looking forward to something, and quicker than a speeding bullet when you weren't. Friday presented a unique dilemma – Kat was looking forward to the _date _part of the night, but not the inevitable cross examination that her father was undoubtedly going to put Patrick and Tommy through.

The result of all these things was that Wednesday and Thursday seemed to last forever – or maybe that was just the dull repetition of the school day – but by the time they'd reached Friday night, Kat couldn't believe it was already, well, Friday night.

Patrick arrived first – five minutes early. This was, Kat thought, as she heard the doorbell ring from her room, a good thing. Her father's opinion of men arriving late was something along the lines of "They might as well show up just for the sex."

Kat winced at the thought.

"Kat," she heard her father call up the stairs, "You're date is here!"

"I'll be down in a minute!"

She heard Patrick say a "Good evening" – so far so good – and make polite conversation with Bianca (who was already downstairs), and her father.

Kat rushed down. Her father, Bianca, and Patrick were sitting around the living room table looking quite…normal.

_That isn't going to last long_, she thought.

She took a seat next to Patrick.

"So," her father said, "We're just missing Tommy now, eh?" He paused, glaring at them, as if it was their fault Tommy wasn't there yet. "I'm giving him one minute."

Bianca's initial horror was unnecessary – Tommy took 15 seconds to ring the doorbell, and then another 10 seconds to be seated next to Bianca. The four of them – Kat, Patrick, Bianca and Tommy – were now crammed into one sofa. Kat felt rather uncomfortable at the sudden proximity to Patrick, and her mind kept thinking about things that made her thankful her father couldn't read minds.

Her father stood up, as if to make a speech.

Kat cringed. _Here it comes…_

"Now listen," her father said, "I know what men are like. _Don't think I don't know what you men want_, and what your _true intentions are._"

He glared at them sternly. Patrick looked at Kat and raised his eyebrows. She shook her head.

"Do you want to know what I do for a living?" her father continued, and Kat saw Bianca shrink into the back of the couch, looking appalled. "I am an OB/GYN. Which means that every day, I get to watch the cultivation of what _you want_. It also means that I am no oblivious, foolish father!"

He glared at them, as if they were calling him an oblivious, foolish father.

Kat looked at Patrick. He looked rather shocked. "I warned you," she mouthed.

Her father continued. "Now, I know what you're thinking. _'Oh, I'll just use a condom_.' Don't even try it. Are you aware that condoms only prevent pregnancies 75 percent of the time? Did you know that 5.3 percent of teens end up pregnant? Now this may not seem important now, but it will if – and it _won't, believe me," _he said, looking straight at Bianca, "Happens to you!"

Kat snuck a glance at Tommy, who looked like he was unsure whether this was some prank being pulled on him.

"Now," her father concluded, "I want both of you two girls home by 11. And whatever you do, _don't have fun_."

He glared at them one final time, and then left.

Bianca looked as if she'd just been forced to swallow a rather large egg. "Well," she said, "Shall we go?"

They followed wordlessly. Bianca and Tommy got into Tommy's car, while Kat in Patrick climbed into hers.

"Well," she said, attempting to be _un_mortified, "That wasn't too bad."

Patrick stared at her. "Does your Dad do that to every guy who tries to take you two out?"

"Generally, yes."

"I think I've finally figured out why you guys never go on dates."

Kat started the car. "Well, lucky for you, you only have to sit through that once."

"As opposed to none? Where are we going, anyway?"

"I don't know. Bianca told me just to follow Tommy's car."

"And we're not allowed to leave them."

Kat glared at him. "Of course not."

"Well," he said, as Kat began to drive, "Since your dad already knows what my 'true intentions are', and you know what my 'true intentions are', how about we just cut to the chase and do what my true intentions are?"

Kat glared at him. "That was _so_ funny, Patrick. I might just die of laughter."

Patrick smirked.

Ten minutes later, the smirked dropped off his face. "We're eating _here?!"_

Kat groaned. "I can't believe this. She _had _to go and pick the cheesiest, most…_sophisticated_- and I mean that in a _bad _way – restaurant ever."

Patrick sighed. "Tell your sister she owes me."

Kat smirked at him. "As if getting to take me out wasn't enough of a payment."

***

The restaurant was dimly lit by candles, and quiescent – the silence only interrupted by clinking glasses and the muted whispers of the clients, almost all of which were couples. In short, Bianca's type of restaurant.

Kat sighed as they took their allotted seats. "This is going to be interesting," she said, looking at Patrick.

And interesting it was. When it came time to order, everything went smoothly – until it was Tommy's turn, who ordered a steak, a ribeye, and a sirloin. Kat wasn't sure what the difference between those three things were, and Tommy clearly didn't care. On top of that, there was his quesadilla, mushroom jack, and a chicken salad.

"Good God," Patrick whispered, "I think he's ordered an entire cow by now."

Kat nearly choked on her food. "If Bianca ever marries this guy, she's going to be cooking from dawn to dusk."

Speaking of which, Bianca looked like she was a combination of shocked and appalled. She watched in a sort of nauseous fascination as Tommy wolfed down his steak, and then progressed on to his 'Mexican' entrees.

"What?" he said, lightheartedly, "Football players need their energy."

"I'm sure you do," Bianca said, trying to smile. She shot Kat frantic glances.

"Speaking of football," Tommy continued, "I had a _great _game against Ashland. Did you see..."

And from that moment on, Tommy was off, talking nonstop about his endless throws and catches and runs. Football was instantly transformed into a dramatic sport that seemed to be a combination of CIA agent-ing – 'I was running so stealthily from the opponent's forces' – physical prowess – 'oh, man, you should've seen how many crunches I did' – and brilliant tai-kwon-do sequences – 'I did like a leaping somersault over this one guy who was trying to tackle me'.

How Tommy managed to ramble endlessly on about football _while _redefining the phrase "I could eat a cow", Kat would never understand. By the time _she_ pushed a quarter of her steak away, full, Tommy was starting in on his sirloin. When Patrick finished his entire meal, Tommy had consumed his steak, quesadilla, salad, and was showing no sign of fatigue.

It wasn't, thought Kat, even the sheer mass of what he was eating – Kat had seen plenty of guys eat more than their share of a meal – it was _how _he was eating it – as if the last time he'd eaten was 1982, or something, and he was being forced to gorge as much as possible in as little time as possible. Half the time, Kat thought, he didn't even chew.

Kat tried not to smile as she looked at the expression on Bianca's face. An understatement would be to say that she looked like she would rather be at home listening to NPR than here.

Bianca caught Kat's eye. "Help me," she mouthed.

Kat made gestures that conveyed her helplessness. She shook her head.

By that point, everyone was finished but Tommy, who seemed rather oblivious. Kat felt as if she was watching some odd hot dog eating contest, with restaurant food instead of hot dogs.

"Only the ribeye left," Patrick whispered to Kat.

Kat stifled a laugh. Then again, it was easy for _her _to laugh – _her_ date was sitting by her side, looking wholly amused. He caught her eye and smiled.

She tried not to blush.

"You know," Tommy said, pushing away the rest of his ribeye, "I'm full."

Bianca let out a not-so-concealed sigh of relief. "Shall we split the bill?"

"Yeah," Patrick whispered, "Cause no way in hell am I paying for everything that kid ate."

The one upside was this: by the time they were back in Kat's car and on the way home, Kat felt a lot better about her eating habits.

"Poor Bianca," she said. "She was so looking forward to today, too."

He raised an eyebrow. "There are other guys."

"Yes, but she was – oh, nevermind. Am I the only one who felt like I was watching a marathon eating contest?"

Patrick smirked. "I had my eyes on something else."

Kat tried not to smile. "That better have an innocent connotation."

They pulled up at her house just in time to see Bianca disappear into the house, looking all-to-relieved to be rid of her date.

"Well," Patrick said, after walking her to her doorstep, "I suppose this is time for the cheesy movie moment?"

Kat smiled. "Define 'cheesy movie moment.'"

"I'm supposed to tell you that I had a great time tonight, and flash you a smile that makes your heart go all aflutter, and whatever else Shakespeare said."

She bit her lip, playing along. "And I'm supposed to thank you for a great night."

"And now," he said, rolling his eyes, "I'm supposed to ask if you'd like to go out again sometime."

Kat raised an eyebrow. "And I'm supposed to simper and reply with a coy--" she imitated some giggly, shy teenage girl – batting an eyelash, "I'd like that."

Patrick smiled. "And to cap the night off," he said, inching closer, "I'm supposed to do this."

Thoughts, Kat learned, flowed a lot easier when you _weren't _making out with Patrick Verona on your doorstep. When you were, thoughts had a tendency to become jumbled, incoherent, and generally useless. She tried to push him away. "Patrick," she mumbled, dazed, "I can't think."

He ignored her and kissed her again. He moved a hand up to her cheek, and Kat tried to _not _feel like she was in danger of imploding any time soon.

When they finally broke apart, Kat felt strange. She wouldn't call it euphoria – it wasn't even elation, really, just a sense of general contentment. She felt the urge to lie in bed all night and just think.

Patrick chuckled to himself, and then began walking away. "Good night, Kat."

"Night."

He was halfway to his motorcycle, and Kat was already standing in the house, about to close the door, when he turned around. "Oh, and Kat?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I like you better when you can't think."

She rolled her eyes, closing the door. "Good night, Patrick."


	12. Psychology 101

Kat remembered the first time she'd read Romeo and Juliet. For all the hype, it really wasn't that great a read. She'd expected it to be some super-romantic, sweet, and classic love story – the kind that would bring the inner girl out of _anyone_ – even Kat Stratford.

She'd read it during the summer after her freshman year as part of her summer reading requirements, thinking that hey – it may just as well have been the one good book she'd read over the summer. Two things struck her at once – firstly, the book was insanely sexist, and secondly, the book was insanely unrealistic.

For the love of God, Kat had thought, nobody – not even Romeo and Juliet – could fall in love _that _quickly. Romeo in general was someone she could spend days ranting about – he seemed to spend all his time moping and complaining – complaining _eloquently_, for that matter, but complaining nevertheless – about what an evil bitch love was. Meanwhile, Juliet was off in her own world spewing some crap about deflowering, and saying some five hundred lines that all equated to "I would rather die than lose Romeo."

And that's just the _first _day after they meet.

How anyone manages to fall in love in one day without even knowing each other's identity (until the bomb is dropped –surprise! You're in love with your mortal enemy!) – was beyond Kat. Besides, 'true love' and all that crap was fake – an image manufactured by Hollywood to get more gaggling girls to see their movies. There was no _true love_. She wasn't saying that love didn't exist, she was just saying that it wasn't that perfect, instant connection that everyone seemed to think it was.

Soul mates were bull – she highly doubted she would meet someone some day and just _'click'. _What did exist, thought Kat, were two people who were compatible, who decided that they liked each other enough to overlook differences and try to change for each other. The term 'fall' in love was deceptive; it should've been 'grow into love', or something of the sort. Not nearly as romantic, but not nearly as ridiculous, either.

Why the hell Katherine Stratford was contemplating the ideologies of love, she didn't want to think about. Somewhere at the back of her mind lurked Patrick Verona, but she knew that was ridiculous. Her and Patrick Verona were probably the least compatible people ever. Half the time they couldn't stand each other. The other half…

_You two are making out?_

She pushed the thought away. That didn't have anything to do with anything, she thought. It was just…chemistry. She hated _that _term too, whoever thought of naming physical attraction after a subject having to do with mixing random liquids and gases deserved to sit in a chemistry lab all day trying to get two _elements _to 'click'.

She couldn't suppress the thought, though, that she _had _grown to like Patrick –if not _love _him (because, as she reminded herself, that was absolutely preposterous – they'd gone out on _one date_). And if she could grow to _like –_

Her thoughts were interrupted by Bianca, barging into her room.

"Well that," Bianca said, "Was a disaster."

Bianca had changed out of her date clothes and into her pajamas. Even though it was only 10:30, half an hour after the date had ended, Kat couldn't blame her for wanting to completely disassociate herself from what happened.

Kat winced. "There are always other guys."

"Yeah. I guess. But still! He was _quarterback_! I was really looking forward to this, too." She sighed. "I guess that's the last date I'm going on until college."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Bianca, I'm sure plenty of guys would love to go out with you."

Bianca's face lightened. "Really?! You think so?!"

"Yes, I do. Come on, next Friday, let's go out again."

Kat felt really, really strange. Completely unlike herself, in fact. She tried to push away the fact that part – okay, almost all – of the reasons she wanted to go out was because of Patrick.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kat. Dad trusts Patrick. Well, as much as he could trust any guy, at least. You two can go out alone. Plus, I'd have no one to go with." She looked depressed again.

"How about that Calvin guy?"

"Who?"

"Really tall kid who follows you around like a stranded puppy?"

"_Oh. _Cameron." She shrugged, looking apprehensive. "Maybe."

"Come on. It can't be _that _bad, especially not compared—I mean, 'cause he's a great guy."

Bianca rolled her eyes. "It's okay Kat, we both know that Tommy was a disaster."

Kat winced. "Yeah."

"Maybe I will ask Cameron to go out sometime. But not next Friday."

"Why not?"

"Because next Friday," Bianca said, a hint of a wicked smile sliding onto her face, "You and Patrick are going to out _aloooone_. It'll be perfect, midway through dinner, he'll be struck by sudden realization. He'll wonder how he could have overlooked the fact that you two are _soulmates_."

She stood up with a flourish. "Then, a sparkle will come into his eyes. He'll realize that you're too special to give up."

Kat raised an eyebrow.

"Slowly but surely, he'll break down your barriers until you're in love with him too. Then, one day, while you two are watching the sun set on a beach somewhere, you'll admit your love for each other. It. Will. Be. _Magical_."

Kat blinked. "Firstly, we are not going to dinner. Secondly, Patrick does not have sudden realizations. Third, we're not soulmates. Fourth, what barriers? Fifth, _eyes do not sparkle _– I don't know where that delusion came from, but eyes don't sparkle! Glitter sparkles. Eyes don't. Sixth, there is nothing cornier than watching the sun set on a beach somewhere. And seventh, _go watch the news_."

Bianca looked affronted. "Well excuse me for being optimistic!"

"Optimistic?!" Kat scoffed, "More like unrealistic! Come _on _Bianca, face it, things like that don't happen in real life."

"Say that now," Bianca replied, full of self-assurance, "But don't say I didn't tell you when you and Patrick get married and ride off into the sunset."

Bianca shrugged and walked out of the room.

Kat wondered what the hell her sister was smoking.

***

You couldn't just label someone. Kat had learned that lesson all too well – no matter how shallow, unfeeling and stereotypical someone seemed, you couldn't label them. It was the mistake Hollywood made (then again, no one really cared about realism in movies nowadays) - everyone was _labeled_. Everyone was a cheerleader, or a jock. A geek, or too strong, or a pushover, a punk, an emo, or a badass. There were categories to the hilt.

But it was always more complicated than that. Bianca may have _seemed _like a shallow airhead preoccupied with popularity – and that _she was _– but there was more to her than that. Chastity Church may have _seemed _like just another mean, controlling, abusive head cheerleader, but somewhere down there, there was another side.

Somewhere, deep, _deep _down.

And Patrick Verona…well he may have seemed like a typical motorcycle riding bad boy with no concern for anyone or anything other than himself, but she couldn't lead herself to believe that anymore. It would have been _so _much easier just to label him as another asshole that objectified women, but she couldn't think of him as that anymore.

And as for herself, Kat thought, well that was a whole other dimension. In a way, she thought, she had been trying to put herself in the very box she insisted shouldn't have existed. While Kat would prefer to think of herself as a headstrong feminist who didn't like anyone or anything get to her, this was only true to a point.

Kat thought of the last time she'd let herself feel something other than scorn and mistrust for the other gender, and then winced, and tried _not _to think of that.

She couldn't just write Patrick off anymore, she thought, just like she couldn't write off what was between them as 'just physical attraction'. She couldn't write him off as a jackass looking for a good time, just like she couldn't write herself off as immune to his advances.

It all came down to whether or not she trusted him. There were two ways to look at the situation, one being a lot more attractive than the other. The first was that he was a douche who was just trying to add Kat to a list of conquests – in it simply because she was a challenge, more fun to chase than the girls already slaving after him.

The second was a lot harder to accept, and a lot easier to push away. The second meant that Kat's willpower, judgment and rationality meant nothing anymore. The second was that Patrick Verona actually gave a crap about her, and that maybe she gave a crap back.

***

To Kat, Monday morning dawned with apprehension as if the sun knew what Kat was feeling. To Kat, Monday dawned with meaning, too, as if it knew that boxes were being broken out of that day and boundaries were being crossed.

And yet to anyone else looking out there window at six AM on Monday morning, it dawned just like any other day. Monday morning proved that you could only see some things when you were looking for them.

***


	13. The Addams Family?

Kat dropped Bianca off at the front of the school, feeling anxious. It turned out, she had no need to – Patrick was waiting for her at her locker.

"Who's the stalker now?" she said, opening it.

Strangely, Patrick didn't reply. He had a foreign expression on his face - there was no smirk, no snide remark, no smile…He looked as if he'd gotten hardly any sleep the night before.

"I need to talk to you," he said slowly.

"I…Alright. Talk."

He sighed. "My uncle wants to meet you."

"But we've already met. I was hungover as shit, remember?"

Patrick grimaced. "Yes. But he wants to meet you _formally_. As in, dinner. And stuff."

"Dinner and stuff?" Kat said, unimpressed, "Define 'and stuff'."

Patrick took a deep breath. "Okay. My family are a bunch of idiots who get excited at the stupidest things. Come to think of it, much like high schoolers."

Kat raised an eyebrow. "Join the club. What's your point?"

"My uncle wants to 'get to know you'."

"Alright."

"He wants us to have dinner…and then – I don't know. He wants to--" Patrick winced –"Bond."

"…Alright."

"He's a big fan of bonding."

Kat paused. "So your entire family is as crazy as you. Still waiting for the point."

"Friday, six o'clock. To ten."

"Alright," she said, shutting her locker, "I don't see why that's too bad. My dad'll probably want to meet you soon too."

Patrick looked horrified at this tidbit of information. "I think your dad and I learned all we needed to learn about each other Friday night."

Kat chuckled. "You have no idea, Patrick. I'll be there." She turned away from her locker, and started to walk away before remembering something. "Patrick," she said, and turned around – but he'd already left.

She shook her head, and then completed the question to herself, under her breath, as if an answer would suddenly swoop out of the sky and hit her, like the way lightbulbs went off in the movies.

_Does this mean we're getting serious?_

***

There was really no reason to be nervous. After all, she was just having a casual dinner with Patrick. And his uncle. Not to mention Sophie and Zach and – oh, damn it all to hell, she was nervous. It wasn't exactly helped by the fact that over the course of the week, Bianca kept bringing it up every five seconds and rambling on and on and on about cheesy movie moments and sunsets and love and sparkles and Kat wanted to die.

And so by the time that Kat was standing on Patrick's doorstep that Friday, her nerves were frayed – even though she would never, _ever _admit that to him – and she couldn't help but fidget. She wondered if she should've worn something more formal than her usual jeans and t-shirt, and then decided against it. Patrick wasn't a formal dress person. And she couldn't see his uncle getting riled up about an outfit, either.

She took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

The door opened almost immediately, and she was greeted by Patrick's uncle. He smiled broadly at her, and she felt a little bit more comfortable. "Ah, come in. Patrick will be so excited to see you."

She mentally snickered_, _thinking that Patrick would hardly be excited to know what his uncle was saying about him. Patrick was plopped onto their living room couch, lazily flicking through channels on the TV. He raised an eyebrow at her as she came into view – hardly delighted. "You're here," he deadpanned.

She smirked at him. "Now the fun can begin."

The corner of his mouth twitched. He shut off the TV. "Sophie," he called, "Get your ass down here before we start dinner without you."

Kat raised an eyebrow at him.

"She doesn't know the meaning of punctuality," he grumbled. "I think she's up there trying to find an earring or something."

Two minutes later, Sophie appeared, looking flustered. Sure enough, she was only wearing one earring. Zach smirked at her. She narrowed her eyes and prepared to retort, but Patrick's uncle chose that moment to appear again.

"Alright guys," he said, "Why don't we all just sit down before someone gets stabbed with a fork." He looked pointedly at Zach, and then at Sophie. They glowered at each other, but sat down at opposite ends of the table. Kat sat down rather awkwardly next to Patrick, and his uncle took the last spot.

"Well," said his uncle, beginning to eat, "Help yourself."

She tried not to feel awkward. "Er – thanks, Mr.--"

"Jake."

"Jake, then. Thanks."

He smiled at her.

"Zach," said Sophie stonily, "Pass the mashed potatoes."

He glared at her. "Get them yourself."

"_Pass. The. Mashed. Potatoes."_

Kat tried not to feel like she was watching some episode of reality TV.

"_Get them yourself!"_

Patrick rolled his eyes and put down his fork. He passed Sophie the mashed potatoes. "For the love of God!"

Sophie switched her glare from Zach to Patrick.

Patrick's uncle – rather, Jake – cleared his throat loudly. "So, Kat, tell us about yourself. Something even Patrick doesn't know."

She colored, and tried not to look at Patrick. "I…I think someone else should go first."

Jake laughed. "Okay, Patrick. Tell us something she doesn't know."

Patrick spluttered. "I thought the guest was supposed to go first!"

His uncle raised an eyebrow. "The guest does whatever she wants. Share."

Kat smirked at him.

"Fine. The motorcycle was a sixteenth birthday gift from him." He jerked his head towards his uncle, irritated.

Patrick's uncle chuckled. "Sorry Kat, but you can't get out of this anymore. Your turn."

Feeling rather lame, she tried to come up with something interesting about herself that Patrick didn't know. She ended up – rather reluctantly – sharing that her first stuffed animal was a bear, a gift from her mother.

"A bear," said Patrick, "That explains so much."

She glared at him. "What was your first stuffed animal, a chainsaw?"

"Close. A semi-automatic. Twice as efficient!"

Zach cleared his throat loudly. "Is this all you two ever do?"

Kat and Patrick looked at each other, and then back at Zach. And then, at the exact same time, they both replied, "Pretty much."

Sophie, for some reason, seemed to be following this less-than-friendly exchange with an air of patronizing bemusement. "I told you, Dad," she said, "They're perfect for each other."

Kat choked on her lasagna, and then tried to ignore the burning in her cheeks. She also tried to ignore Patrick's eyes, which were now boring holes through the side of her face.

The rest of dinner passed rather uneventfully – that is, if you counted Sophie and Zach getting into another fight over "common courtesy", one that involved the phrase "pass the goddamn potatoes before I stick this spoon up your--" – thankfully, before Sophie could complete _that _threat, her uncle interrupted with a loud "Ahem."

By the time they'd finished dinner, Kat felt a lot better about _her _arguments with Bianca and her dad over dinner.

"Now," Patrick's uncle said, rather jubilantly, "Let's play a game."

Sophie groaned. "Oh God, no. Is this the one we played with Dan?"

"It is!" cried her uncle, while Patrick looked horrified.

Kat stared at him, confused. "What…what is he talking about?"

Patrick sighed. "When I said he wanted to 'get to know you', I meant it. He invented…this…game."

"He _invented _it?"

"Well not exactly. It's like a combination of bingo, and truth or dare. Just without the dare part."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Just go along with it."

The five of them converged around a table in the center of the living room. His uncle brought a stack of bingo sheets, and a deck of cards – the cards, however, were printed, and didn't have numbers on them, but words. On the _back_ of every card were two numbers.

Patrick was looking more and more mortified by the moment.

"Okay," said his uncle, "Here's how this works. We go in a circle, and all take a card. On the card is a yes or no question. You have to answer the question honestly, and explain the answer, or give the circumstances. On the back of the card are numbers, there's one number for yes, and one number for no. If you get a number that matches with a spot on your bingo sheet, you mark it. Other than that, it's just regular bingo! And for the record, these questions are taken from the cards of a drinking game, so try and ignore the awkwardness."

He looked rather proud of himself.

"Dad," said Sophie, "Is this really necessary?"

"It's a good ice breaker," her father said defensively, "And it's fun." He handed out bingo sheets. Kat looked at hers rather dismally, thinking that if she got through this night without giving Patrick enough information to taunt her for life with, she'd be forever grateful.

"Okay Patrick, you go first."

"Me?!" Why do _I _have to go first?"

"Fine. Sophie, you go first."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll be the mature one."

Kat thought that 'mature' was not a very word to describe someone who threatened to shove spoons up people's asses, but hey, this was Sophie.

Sophie took one look at her card and then stared at her dad. "You've _got _to be kidding me," she said flatly.

"Come on," he said cheerily, "Don't be shy. Read it out loud!"

"Would you make out with Jabba the Hut for ten grand," she deadpanned.

Kat tried to stifle a laugh, but failed. She wasn't the only one – Zach was sniggering in the corner, and Patrick looked wholly amused.

"No," Sophie continued, "I wouldn't."

"And why's that," Zach pressed. "We have to give explanations, remember?"

He looked all too happy about it. Sophie glared at him. "Because ten grand is not enough to make out with an obnoxious, fictional, alien creep."

Zach looked satisfied.

She flipped the card over. "That's a 9."

She glanced at her bingo card. "Damn it," she said, "I don't even have a fuc--"

"_Language_," her father interrupted. She looked sour.

"Okay Kat, your turn!"

She drew a card. _Please, please, please let this be something like 'have you ever wanted to melt into a puddle' or something._

Have you ever kissed someone and regretted it?

She closed her eyes. _This cannot be happening. I cannot believe this. _

"Well?" said Patrick, grinning widely. "What's it say?"

"It says," Kat said, through gritted teeth, "Have you ever kissed someone and regretted it?"

Patrick nearly fell out of his chair. Kat could tell that they were both thinking of the same thing at that moment. The truthful answer, of course, would be yes. She had, but it wasn't Patrick – she'd never _actually _regretted the kiss(es) they'd shared, she'd just…questioned her mental sanity at the time. She wondered how much more awkward the afternoon could get.

"Yes," she said, trying to keep her eyes firmly between Patrick and his uncle, "I have. This guy in Ohio. Your turn," she said, smiling sweetly at Patrick.

He raised an eyebrow at her and took a card. "Would you kiss someone of the same gender for a hundred dollars?"

He raised an eyebrow. "No. I can get a hundred dollars by working for three days. Your turn, Zach."

Zach sighed, and then took a card. "Have you ever been in a _three--" _he broke off, looking horrified._ " _Dad! What the hell?"

"Oops," Patrick's uncle said, taking the card, "I thought I took that one out. Draw another one."

Zach clenched his teeth and did as he was told. "Would you eat five dead worms for ten grand?"

Kat grimaced at the thought.

"Sure," Zach said, "As long as they're clean. I'd have to cut them up at first, but hey, it's ten grand."

Sophie looked nauseous. "You are so disgusting."

Zach shrugged. "And rich, if that ever happened."

The game wasn't so bad when it _wasn't _your turn, and pretty soon Kat learned that the best way to approach horrifying questions was to pretend it was no big deal. At least everyone else had to go through the same torture too, she thought. When it wasn't her turn, though, it was hilarious – she learned that Sophie would rather scrub the inside of her mouth with soap than never swear again, and Patrick would rather wear a strong Victoria's Secret lotion for a day than wear a pink top.

Kat was forced to confront questions she'd never even thought about – would she never shower again for a million dollars? (No.) Would she go back in time if she had no power over where she ended up? (No.) Did she have anything to say to anyone back in Ohio? (Most definitely, yes.)

By the time they'd gone through the deck of cards once, they'd been through two rounds of bingo – Sophie winning one, and Zach winning one. It was 9:45, fifteen minutes before Kat was due to leave. Patrick's uncle cleaned up the supplies good naturedly, while Sophie and Zach were in the midst of a heated argument about which one of them had the messier room, and Patrick and Kat were left to awkward discuss the past evening.

"Well that was…interesting," she managed to come up with.

"Definitely," he said, and then smirked. "Would you really turn down meeting the person who wrote your favorite book if it meant moving to Florida?"

She rolled her eyes. "Hurricanes, gaggles of tourists, and being forced to go to the beach every day by Bianca. Let's think."

"Patrick," Zach said, interrupting their conversation. He looked pointedly at Kat. "Why don't you," he continued, in a rather blatant voice, "Show Kat your room."

He nodded suggestively, and Kat tried to resist the urge to make an "emergency" run to the bathroom.

"She's already seen my room. Remember?"

Zach glared at him. "Well I'm sure she had a pounding headache and doesn't remember anything. Go show it to her again."

"Fine, if that means getting away from you and Sophie." He took Kat's hand and practically dragged her away.

She tried to control her breathing at the sudden contact.

"Er," she managed, stumbling up the stairs after Patrick. "Okay."

"Wow," she said, after walking into his room, "It looks…exactly the same as last time."

Patrick smirked and closed the door. Kat tried to suppress memories of what they'd done the _last time _they were in his room alone together. "Good to know that pounding headaches don't affect your _vision_."

She glared at him. "You're cousins are…really…something."

He rolled her eyes. "We are in my room, ten minutes before you have to leave, and you want to talk about my cousins. Honestly," he said.

Kat blushed. "What would you rather talk about?" she said, trying not to sound accusatory.

He smiled at her triumphantly. "I'd rather not talk," he said, and then kissed her.

The world could have ended and she wouldn't have been able to tell – everything was Patrick, his hand in her hair, his other arm around her waist, his lips on hers. She probably wouldn't have been able to tell you where she was, what year it was, or who the current president was. All she knew was Patrick, and the feel of him against her, and the heat that was coursing through her body like lava, and she felt like floating, floating—

The door opened rather loudly, followed by a rather stony looking Zach. "Oh," he said pointedly.

Kat's cheeks scorched – probably in part from the kiss, and in part from the fact that Zach had just walked in on them. She dared not look at Patrick.

Suddenly, Zach rolled his eyes and – of all the things to do – grinned rather wickedly at Patrick.

Kat snuck a look at him. Patrick looked as if he was about to go and hit Zach over the head with a rather large club.

Zach was unfazed. "About time," he said, rolling his eyes and getting ready to leave, "And I was starting to think you'd gone Amish for her."

---

A/N: Sorry it took a while to get this up – it's longer than my usual chapters. Anyways, that game doesn't actually exist (thank God). Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

S


	14. You Can Run

Kat Stratford had a dilemma.

This was nothing new; Kat had a tendency to always be involved in one moral dilemma or another, ranging from grade inflation to saving naked mole rats. What was new, however, was that this was an oddly personal dilemma for someone who reviled anything remotely personal at all. Then again, Patrick Verona had a tendency to create dilemmas for her.

How was she supposed to explain to her unbelievably strict and paranoid father that she was getting serious about a guy? Or something even harder to believe – that a guy was getting serious about _her_. Plus, her father would probably translate "getting serious" to "sleeping with". And while Patrick may just as well have had that definition of "getting serious", Kat was reserving judgment for when it either did or didn't come up in a conversation. Or in a bedroom. Whichever one happened first.

She poked at a green bean nervously and tried to avoid her father's gaze. Earlier that day, she'd told him – Lord knows why – that she wanted to talk to him, probably in order to prevent herself from chickening out. Which, of course, she was now doing. Bianca sat next to her, tapping her foot. She looked at Kat expectantly.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Kat?"

He looked as if he was holding his breath.

"Do you remember Patrick?"

Her father narrowed his eyes. "That dark haired kid who took you out that one time?"

Kat exhaled sharply. "Yes. Except, no. Well, yes. But…I think we've gotten to a point where he's no longer just 'that dark haired kid who took me out that one time."

Her father nodded slowly.

_No explosions yet, _she thought.

"So what you're telling me," said her father in a tone that seemed to mix incredulity and doubt, "Is that you two are--" he winced – "a couple?"

"Yes. Well, I'm not sure. It's not exactly official – I mean, we haven't had that total cliché discussion about _what we are_. But…I met his family. And I think he's serious about me. I think. And I think I'm serious about him. I mean, I _am _serious about him. I…I think."

"No sex," her father said resolutely.

Kat rolled her eyes. "Yes, I got that the 600th time you said that to me, worry not."

"Nothing illegal."

"Oh, really? I thought we were supposed to do illegal things."

Her father ignored the sarcasm and continued. "No drugs."

"Drugs fall under illegal, dad."

"No alcohol."

"I know. And no touching, no motorcycles, no skipping class. I got it."

He stared at her as if trying to decide whether she was trustworthy. "Okay," he said. "You're cleared. Have I met this guy?"

Kat exhaled, feeling relieved and contented and in a good mood and pleasantly surprised all at once. "Yes, dad. You talked about STD'd for an hour or so, and then moved on to teen pregnancy. Believe me, he remembers."

Her dad looked at her suspiciously. "Well then…I suppose if there's nothing _happening_…It's okay."

Bianca practically jumped out of her seat. "Does that mean I can date?"

He sighed heavily. "Yes, it does. But I'll need to meet--" Bianca was already half way down the hall, out of earshot. "My little flower is growing up."

Kat rolled her eyes, standing up. "Yes, and your cactus is, too."

"Oh, Kat. I meant to tell you something."

"Do you remember Jesse from Ohio?"

She froze and turned around. "Yes?"

"He's coming to California to visit some colleges. He's staying for a week - I told his dad he could stay at our house, you know, so he wouldn't have to pay for a hotel. He can stay in the guest room, you know--"

Kat tried not to fall over. "Are you kidding me? Jesse _Malsder?"_

Her father smiled. "The one and only. Me and his dad were talking about the good old days the other day, man I miss him. Remember how his father and I would go out every Satur…"

But Kat was already in another world, disjointed memories floating back to her – memories of sunsets and fields and hikes and a happier, more naïve Katherine Stratford. Memories of stolen kisses, stolen time, stolen moments that her father would never – _could _never find out about.

She took a deep breath.

"When is he getting here?"

"A week. You two haven't talked in _ages_, you used to be such good friends…"

Kat tried not to laugh at the irony in his statement that her father was blissfully unaware of. "I…I can't wait. You know, I have a lot of history homework. I have to go finish." She rushed up the stairs, and shut the door. Then she thought twice, opened the door again and called Bianca.

"Yes?" Bianca said, rushing into her room.

Kat shut the door firmly. "Did you know?"

Bianca looked confused. "Know what?"

_That's a no. _

She took a deep breath. "That _Jesse Malsder _is coming to stay at our house for a week. A _week!_"

Bianca paled, her face set in the same disbelief that Kat's was in. "Are you serious?! Jesse from-"

"Yes, Jesse from Ohio! What other Jesse?! Jesse, the son of dad's best friend, Jesse, my best friend from tenth grade, Jesse--" she said, and stopped.

Bianca completed her thought for you. "The guy you slept with."

Kat sat down. "Crap, Bianca. He's staying _here_! I am not going to be able to handle the awkwardness, especially since dad thinks we'll hit it off and become best friends again!"

She fell onto the bed. "Wonderful, Kat," she said, more to herself than Bianca, "You finally find someone to date again and Jesse shows up. You know, maybe this is a warning. That Patrick's just trying to do what Jes-"

Bianca cut her off. "That's ridiculous, Kat, and you know it. And you can't pretend Jesse is just a horrible person no matter how--"

"Yeah that's right," Kat snapped, "Lecture me on virtues, Ms. 'All I want is popularity.'"

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Not. The. Point. The point is that you and Jesse need to just get over your petty little problems and be friends. But you _might _want to let Patrick know that your ex boyfriend from Ohio who you may or may not have slept with is staying in the same house as you. Every day. Every night. For seven days. And you can't just tell Patrick he's some idiot who used you for sex," Bianca said knowingly, "Because that would be a lie."

Kat winced. It _would _be a lie. Jesse wasn't just some horny teenage jerk – he was sweet and caring and just as victimized as Kat. How was he supposed to know that she was going to be moving to California? It wasn't his fault they'd chosen to have sex the day before she found out that she'd be moving. And it wasn't _her _fault that he didn't believe in long distance relationships.

Victims of circumstance, you could say. But she really _had _loved him, and he really had loved her, and that was more than she could say for Patrick at the moment. Jesse and Patrick were so different it made her head hurt – Jesse was sweet, completely un-sarcastic and full of refreshing honesty. Patrick was a "motorcycle riding hoodlum," as her dad had phrased it.

So _what _was she supposed to say to Patrick exactly? "My boyfriend from Ohio is coming to stay for a week, by the way, we only broke up because I moved and he didn't like long distance relationships. Oh, and, not that this is important, but I was kind of in love with him."

_Yeah, that would go down well._

***


	15. But You Can't Hide

Patrick dropped his bag onto the floor next to his seat, and sat down expectantly.

Kat fumbled nervously with her lunch, trying to remember why she had decided to tell Patrick. Oh, right. Because he was going to find out either way.

"Alright," he said, "What's the issue?"

Kat took a deep breath. "There's this guy."

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "You've _got _to be kidding me."

"Wait," she said, hastily, realizing just how her statement sounded, "Don't be ridiculous, I didn't mean it like that." She took a deep breath.

"Okay. So. What's the issue?"

"BackinOhiohisdadandmydadwerebestfriendsandwekindofdatedandimighthavelostmyvirginitytohim."

Needless to say, Patrick didn't get a word. Rather, he got three rather misfortunate words. "I got 'Ohio','dated', and 'virginity.' Should I be concerned?"

"Back in Ohio," she said through gritted teeth, "There was this guy. Jesse. Our dads were best friends, and we were too. And we might have gone out. And," she winced, "had sex – my dad doesn't know, of course."

Kat was pretty sure that Patrick's eyebrow was going to fall off sooner or later if he kept raising it. "Point?"

She smacked herself mentally for missing the entire point of telling this to Patrick. "Well, as I said, our dads are really close. And Jesse's coming to California to visit some colleges. And…well, my dad sort of offered to let him stay at our house for a week."

Patrick shrugged. "To be honest, Kat, I really don't care who's staying at your house from when to when to do what as long as you two don't end up 'igniting old passions', or whatever usually happens in those stupid books."

Kat blinked. "You mean you really don't care?"

Patrick shot her a look. "Unless you'd prefer me to get protective, jealous, and generally completely not me? No thank you."

Kat opened her mouth to retort, but then snapped it shut, remembering what happened last time she tried to explain.

Patrick smirked at her. "Or you're just trying to make me jealous, Stratford, in which case I suggest you come up with something better than old 'acquaintances' from Ohio."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't flatter yourself, Verona."

She grabbed her bag and her lunch and left him sitting at the table, smirking in an all-too-knowing way.

She spent the rest of lunch trying to do two things. Firstly: try and ignore the tiny, _infinitesimal _twinges of annoyances that she felt about the fact that Patrick wasn't even _a little _concerned about Jesse. For all he knew, they could end up making out and having steamy catch-up sex every night. Highly unlikely as it was, it _could _happen, and Patrick should've at least been a _little _worried.

_Good job, Kat, _her conscience chimed in a typically snide manner, _You try to get Patrick jealous and end up being jealous over his lack of jealousy. Way. To. Go._

_I am not jealous_, she told herself firmly, _I just think it's completely dumb of him to not be concerned about this at all._

Which brought her to the second thing: try and ignore the anticipation for Jesse's arrival. Because no matter what she did, she couldn't ignore the fact that when she'd left Ohio, she _had _been in love with Jesse. And that she'd simply buried the feelings under a general disgust with society, and of course, the feelings for Patrick. But when Jesse got to Ohio and the masked feelings tried to make their way out again, she was screwed. Plus, there was a side of her that Patrick would _never _see that Jesse was quite familiar with.

And it wasn't just _Jesse _who was coming back – in a way, the old her was coming as well. No one in California knew that she hadn't always been a temperamental, strong-willed feminist, and she was trying to keep it that way, but with the arrival of Jesse, who knew what secrets from her past could get out. The one involving their 'night' together had already made its Patrick, although that was completely her fault, and her fault alone.

Plus, Jesse was sweet, and considerate and all the things Patrick wasn't. Jesse was the guy that girls fell for simply because he was _worth _falling for – something that was ridiculously rare. And who was to say he'd gotten over her?

_So basically, I'm screwed._

***

The week passed in a blur – between juggling school and her conflicting emotions, Kat felt like she was running a marathon. The only running, of course, being in her mind.

Jesse was set to arrive at around half past seven on Wednesday night. By five, Kat was pacing back and forth like the world was set to end (and who knew, Kat's present + her present could just trigger the apocalypse.) By half past five, she'd resorted to staring at the first page of her math homework, trying to focus on the first problem, and getting absolutely nowhere. By six, she'd managed to convince herself that this really wasn't a big deal at all. By half past six, the conviction of six o clock had managed to disappear.

Bianca appeared in her room at fifteen minutes of seven. "Shit," Kat said to her, "He's getting here in _forty freaking five _minutes."

Bianca blinked. "I'm very aware of the time."

"Fortyfiv--" Kat repeated, but Bianca cut her off.

"I know this is a really bad time, but I need you to do me a favor."

The typicality of this Bianca-needs-a-favor routine calmed Kat. It was familiar, safe. It was something she could reply snidely to and not feel guilty, something she could hold on to in case her world collapsed in forty five minutes.

"I'm not a genie, Bianca. I will eventually run out of favors to grant."

"Yeah, yeah. Is that a yes?"

"What's the favor?"

"Go out on Friday night so me and Cameron can."

Kat momentarily forgot that her past was about to crash on top of her. "You asked him out?!"

"No. He asked me out. And why not, I guess he's not gay."

Bianca shrugged. "So will you?"

"Sure. Have you checked with Dad?"

Bianca smiled. "Cameron doesn't stand a chance against Dad, and once dad realizes that, we'll be fine. Besides, if there's anyone dad would _want _me to date, it'd probably be Cameron."

Kat couldn't help but agree with her sister's statement.

"Wait," she said, a slow dread dawning on her, "That means Jesse'll have to meet Patrick."

Bianca shot her a glum look. "No he doesn't. Just lock Jesse in his room until the date is over. _Besides--_" Bianca interrupted, as she saw that Kat was about to retort, "You already agreed! Bye!"

Bianca dashed out of the room before Kat could say anything else.

_Okay_, Kat thought to herself calmly. _Well, fuck._

She smiled cynically.

_Calm down_, the rational – and usually overpowering - side of her thought, _nothing bad is going to happen. It doesn't matter if they like each other or not, Jesse's leaving in a week. Besides, Jesse doesn't even have the capability to hate anyone. And Patrick, as he pointed out, doesn't really give a shit. _

This all led to catastrophe two: Jesse was _early_. Half an hour, early, in fact, so that when the doorbell rang, Kat was still in the middle of her pep talk to herself.

"Kat," her dad called, "Bianca, get down! He's here!"

Kat braced herself. _How badly can this go_?

She raced down the stairs, trying to breathe. _Okay, _she rambled in her mind, _In the books, the first eye contact always defines what happens. So if I see him, and we have this eye contact and sparks fly, then I'm screwed. …Literally? So…avoid eye contact. Got it._

_You can't base your life off a book, Kat, that's what Bianca would do._

_And look! Bianca doesn't have ex boyfriends appearing out of thin air!_

She was in such a flurry that she almost didn't realize it when she got to the open front door, and practically ran into him.

"Hi," he said, rather awkwardly. Her dad had evidently left to try and find Bianca.

"Hi," she managed, still trying to avoid eye contact.

Jesse looked flustered. "Er- you can…you can look at me, you know. I'm not…I'm not gonna kill you on eye contact."

She winced. _Kill _was not what she would have deemed an appropriate term.

She looked at him and tried to feel more comfortable. Jesse was still Jesse – same pin straight blond hair, falling rather haphazardly into whatever space they felt like occupying. Same four inches taller than her. Same light blue eyes, an air of perpetual naiveté falling about him. It made her feel instantly at ease – Jesse was unthreatening, Jesse was polite, Jesse was –

Not Patrick.

"You should come in," she said, noticing for the first time that he had a rather heavy looking suitcase in his hand. "I'll…show you where to put that."

He nodded gratefully. "Thanks."

She walked upstairs to the guest room. _So far…as good as it's going to get_.

"Well, thanks," he said, after depositing his stuff into his closet. "This is nice. The house, I mean," he said hastily. "Not…_this_. Well, this is nice too, but only if you – you know, never mind."

Kat smiled. Jesse was definitely still Jesse. Still awkward, still puppy-ish, still honest and oblivious and sincere. So, unbelievably sincere.

"So…" she said, for lack of anything else, "How's Ohio?"

He opened his suitcase and started taking out clothes. "Ohio is more or less the same. We didn't change capitals, or locations, still hot as hell, still boring, and still dry. Nothing's changed."

"I see."

There was a comfortable silence. Kat was beginning to get used to him; he was familiar and hadn't tried to hit on her yet, so maybe the week wouldn't involve murder and apocalypses.

"How are you?" he said.

She shot him what she hoped was a dark and brooding look. "I've become a drug dealer now, didn't you know?"

He laughed. "Ah, yes. The same girl who spent a week ignoring me because I wouldn't give her my watermelon lollipop is a drug dealer."

She glared at him. "I. Was. Six. Lollipops were the world when you were six."

"The good old days," he nodded.

Another silence.

"My dad," Kat said softly, "Expects us to become insta-best friends."

"'Best friends'."

"He doesn't know that we--" she said, and then stopped.

_That we had sex? That we had a big blowup over me moving? _

"That we dated," Jesse said.

Kat nodded, grateful for the reprieve. "Yeah."

"Well, I don't see what's wrong with Insta-best friends," he said, grinning, "They can't be worse than Insta-noodles or whatever other Insta-things they have now."

She rolled her eyes. "Thank you for clearing that up."

"So listen," he said quickly, "Are you seeing anyone?"

He paled. "That came out kind of wrong."

She winced. _He was never good at subtlety. _

"I…I am. I think I am. Well, I am, but it's not…official."

He nodded. "Is that short for 'I have feelings for someone who might have feelings for me and I'm not interested in you right now?'"

Kat winced. "Kind of."

"That means 'Yes,' doesn't it?"

Growing up with someone, Kat learned, gave people the ability to see right through each other.

She sighed. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "I don't blame you. Or him. Things happen."

Kat wondered how the hell someone as _utterly nice _as Jesse didn't have a girlfriend.

There was a silence. "This is mildly awkward," he said lightheartedly.

She smiled. "Just a little. Anyways, I should go. Homework. And stuff."

He shot her a weary, almost resigned look, and nodded. She knew he saw right through her. She was halfway out the door when she heard him call her name.

"Kat?"

She turned. "Mm?"

"What's his name?" he said, and then smiled.

"Patrick." She bit her lip.

He nodded. "I brought a stun gun, just in case I decided to go out some day and end up getting abducted." He grinned impishly. "But I think you might need it more than I do. Who knows what California guys are like."

She rolled her eyes, and then offered him a metaphoric gift, a tiny, small piece of encouragement. She shook her head, knowing it didn't come anything close to what he had given her. "You aren't too bad at this Insta-friend thing, you know that?"

He smiled, and even then, Kat could see a sort of bittersweetness shine through his eyes, a sort of resigned acceptance; the sweetest sadness in his demeanor. "Thanks," he said, and then hesitated. "Good night, Kat."

"Night."

Kat was reminded that night, once again, that unfortunately, teen movies sucked, that the ex boyfriend was never as jerk-y as they were portrayed as. She winced, thinking that she had never even met anyone who was as much of an asshole as half the people in movies and books.

Did Jesse still love her? Definitely.

Did she still love Jesse? Probably, yes, but not in a romantic way. He was the perpetual best friend, the guy that was too nice for her, the guy who deserved someone better.

She sighed. If she thought about what she was about to think about, there was no way to turn around; she'd be digging herself into a hole she'd sworn never fall into again.

She closed her eyes, realizing that sometimes it took a good, hard look at the past just to figure out what the hell the present meant.

***


	16. Collision Course

"So," said a familiar and all-too-welcome voice. "How'd it go?"

She smirked at him. "Couldn't even wait until after first period to find out, could you?"

She closed her locker and walked away, secretly hoping for him to follow. He did. "Should I assume the worst?"

She turned around and looked him in the eye. "I'm moving back to Ohio, and we're getting married. I might be pregnant."

Patrick didn't look perturbed at all. Kat felt that familiar pang of annoyance at the fact that she could never, _ever _get to him. "Wow," he said, "'Maybe getting pregnant' is not something that'd be easy with your dad in the house."

Kat laughed.

"Seriously. What happened?"

She rolled her eyes. "_Somebody's jealous_," she said in a mocking voice that even Bianca would have been proud of.

"So jealous," he said, nodding sarcastically, "Boy oh boy do I wish it was me who was almost getting you pr--"

She winced and cut him off. "Don't bother finishing that thought."

He smirked. "Can't handle it?"

She glared at him, and then crossed her fingers behind her back, as if that was going to make the lie she was about to tell any truer. "He got there. I showed him to his room. We made light conversation. I left."

Patrick looked satisfied. "Great."

He looked at her rather roguishly, and then leaned in. She responded almost instinctively, but instead of going to her lips, he brought his head to her ear. She tried to mask her disappointment by brushing a piece of hair behind her ear, even thought she knew he saw right through her. Her smirked and then cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. He gently pulled until she was looking right at him.

_Don't do anything stupid, _she thought, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating.

_Does shoving him into a closet count as stupid?_

_Probably._

He raised an eyebrow in his smug manner. "It's good to know I'm the only one who can do this," he said, and then kissed her.

Thoughts of Jesse were floored in an instant – Jesse was sweet and all, but Patrick – Patrick was something else. Patrick could be a force of nature when he wanted to be (often), a cocky jerk (extremely often), and completely inscrutable (always).

A shrill bell wrenched Kat back into reality. She pushed Patrick away rather reluctantly. "Gotta go…class…" she managed.

Patrick smirked."That was well-expressed."

She regained some of her composure at that jab. "I'm stunned into silence at the _size of your ego_," she said, glaring at him.

"And I," he said, "Am stunned into silence at your ability to deny something you clearly want so much." He smirked.

"Believe me," she said, "The only thing I'm denying myself right now is kicking your ass."

"While I'm sure you want to do things to my ass," he said suggestively, "I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve kicking." He seemed to think for a minute. "Well," he said, "If that's what turns you on."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh, there are things that turn me on, and believe me, they aren't the words 'Patrick Verona.'"

He smirked and walked up to her. "You sure about that?"

She took the last step, making eye contact. "Positive," she said, tilting her head to the side and pausing for a moment for effect.

Patrick smirked. "See you around," he said, and then walked away.

***

It wasn't serious, of course. It was never serious with Patrick, a fact that half the stupid student body couldn't seem to grasp. They obviously couldn't see what was plain to Kat – he was just doing it for kicks, to see their reaction. It was also what half the student body failed to grasp about _Kat_, resulting in a number of rather misfortunate rumours all seemingly involving her being a runaway murderer from Ohio disguised as an innocent high schooler. These seemed to have cultivated the newer, even _more _ridiculous rumours that she and Patrick Verona had teamed up in an effort to exterminate anyone who got in their way, a la Adolf Hitler.

And what resulted when word got around (as it always did) that Kat Stratford and Patrick Verona had been engaged in a 'passionate session of tonsil hockey' before first period could be understated as a wide-scale shockwave. Words like "conspiracy" and "love/hate agreement in the name of homicide" flew, so that while Kat walked to lunch, people were openly (and rather unabashedly) staring at her.

Patrick pulled up a seat next to her.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"Touchy, touchy," he said. He smiled, took out an apple and bit into it. "Well," he said, dragging his words out and shooting Kat a smoldering look, "Since everyone wants one, why don't we put on a show?"

She grabbed an orange from her lunch and threw it at him. He caught it effortlessly, and tossed it back at her. She caught it and threw it back.

He rolled his eyes. "Are we playing catch?"

"Just keep the damn orange, I don't want it anyway."

He rolled his eyes. "Mature."

Kat sighed. "I need you to take me out tomorrow."

He raised an eyebrow. "Ooh. We've moved from _want _to _need_, haven't we? So much for not turning you on."

Kat glowered at him. "_For Bianca_."

"It must be nice," Patrick said, "To have a sister who you can excuse to ask a guy out."

"Fine," she said, standing up, "I'll tell her you can't go."

She stood up and turned around, but before she could go anywhere, his arms were around her, pulling her back.

"_Personal. Freaking. Space._" She said, while mentally thanking him for the fact that he never listened to her half-hearted brush-offs.

She heard the smirk in his voice. "What time should I be there?"

"Seven. Now _let me go!_"

He let her go, took one look at the amount of people staring at them, and declared much too loudly, "See you at seven."

***

She knocked on his door tentatively, worried. "Jesse?" she said. "You there?"

"Yeah?" she heard Jesse call from inside the room. He opened the door. "Hey, what's up?"

Kat raised an eyebrow. "Besides people at school thinking I'm a criminal? Nothing much. How was 'checking out colleges'?"

Jesse rolled his eyes and walked back into the room, a silent invitation hanging in the air. Kat followed at sat awkwardly at the foot of his bed. He had his laptop set up on top of a desk – from what Kat could see, he was playing some sort of video game.

Kat rolled her eyes. "Still obsessed with gaming, I see."

He began hitting keys, causing an odd number of explosions on the screen. "Obsessed is an overstatement."

"Yes, and so is 'mass murderer'."

"Anyway, I saw Stanford today."

_Stanford. Figures, _Kat thought, not surprised – Jesse had always had amazing grades, and he would have next to no trouble applying for colleges. "How was it?"

Another explosion. "Big," Jesse said, absentmindedly, pushing a couple more buttons.

"It's _Stanford_. Of course it's big."

"Mhm."

Kat winced. "So…are you…gonna be home on tomorrow night?"

_Please. Say. No. Please, please, please, please, _please _tell me Jesse and Patrick aren't gonna meet. Please._

Jesse paused the game. He looked confused. "What?"

"Friday night. Are you gonna be out?"

"Er. Why?" he said, puzzled.

"No reason," Kat said. "I'll just be going now, bye--"

Jesse sighed, suddenly realizing what was going on. "Patrick's taking you out."

It wasn't a question.

She cringed. "Yes."

"You don't want us to meet." He had a foreign look in his eyes – a look at seemed uncertain and longing and confused all at once. A look Kat had seen on his face so many times, a look Jesse had whenever he was hurt, easier to read than a book.

"Well, no," she said, but Jesse shot her a look. "Yes."

He sighed. "If you don't want me to be here, then I guess I'll go out or something."

"You don't have to."

He shrugged and resumed his game. "No problem. I'd hate for it to be awkward."

But it was a problem. It was a problem, and Kat knew it, and Jesse knew it, and problems never disappeared. And Jesse wouldn't just disappear, no matter how hard she tried – no matter how hard _he _tried – because Lord knew, he'd do that for her.

She tried not to think about that as she left the room silently, tried not to think about the fact that Jesse wasn't the only thing she was leaving in the room.

***

A/N: How is it? I've been having a lot of difficulty writing the last two chapters – and the next one'll be hard too; I'm trying to make Jesse likeable, even though, obviously, everyone wants Patrick and Kat together.


	17. Collision Course Pt 2

"Dammit, Kat" Bianca wailed, "It's _raining!_"

Raining was an understatement –water was coming down in _sheets. _"No kidding," Kat said, trying to find a jacket to wear to school that _wouldn't _soak through completely.

"This ruins _everything_!"

"Don't be so melodramatic, Bianca. It's _rain_, not acid."

"That's not what I was talking about!" Bianca snapped, "For the date tonight, me and Cameron were going to go on a picnic."

"You and Cameron?" Kat said, incredulous, "Don't you mean you, Cameron, Patrick and me? Remember, I get dragged into doing everything with you. Thank God it's raining, could you have thought up anything more cliché?"

Bianca glared at her. "It was going to be _perfect_!"

Kat rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay. Just like your date with Tommy was going to be perfect?"

She cringed. _That was unnecessarily harsh._

_You're just in a bad mood because of Jesse._

_I am not!_

_Well count your blessings, because you know they're going to meet tonight._

_Or I could take Bianca's advice and lock him in a closet. _

_Or you could ditch the date and lock yourself in the closet _with _Patrick._

She blinked, mortified at her thoughts.

"Just hurry up!" Bianca moaned. "We're gonna be late to school!"

"What a horrible possibility," Kat replied sarcastically, but grabbed a random jacket nevertheless and hurried down the stairs.

***

"So," Patrick said, coming up from behind her, "Where are we going tonight?"

She rolled her eyes and put down her sandwich, as Patrick took a seat next to her. "Thanks to you, I just lost my appetite."

Patrick smirked. "Still haven't answered the question."

"We _were_ goingto a picnic," she said, and tried to contain her laughter at Patrick expression, "But Mother Nature seems to have other ideas."

"Thank you, Mother Nature," Patrick muttered. "Who's your sister's date anyway? Tommy again? I'm in the mood to laugh."

"No. Cameron."

Patrick looked at her, surprised. "The tall one?"

"Patrick, there's no other Cameron in her grade."

"Which you would know, naturally, because you're friends with everyone in the grade," Patrick said sarcastically.

"I'm a classic example of a social butterfly."

"That'll be true the day your dad likes me."

She rolled her eyes. "I wonder how much trouble I would get in for ditching Bianca. I mean, Cameron's harmless!"

Patrick raised an eyebrow, smirking. "If you want alone time, there's always my house," he said.

Kat rolled her eyes. "Funny."

"So where _are _we going?"

Kat shrugged. "You'd have to ask Bianca. I have no say, whatsoever, in the decision making process of these clichés."

"Cliché, eh?"

Kat rolled her eyes. "I mean, _come on. _Can you _get _more unoriginal than dinner and a movie? Or a _picnic_, for the love of God, Bianca probably pictures sitting in the middle of the field, the wind whipping through her hair--_" _– She tossed her hair, imitating Bianca – "Have you noticed that whenever people go on picnics in movies or books, they always end up having sex in the middle of some field. And it _always starts raining_. And it's _always _symbolic for a 'cleansing' of the soul, or whatever. Good God."

Patrick raised an eyebrow at her. "You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?"

She laughed. "It's a thought-provoking topic. Picnics are very deep."

"So we aren't going on a picnic."

"Unless you want to get utterly drenched, no."

"Do me a favor," he said, with a completely serious expression.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Wear a white t-shirt?"

Kat glared at him, as the bell signaling the end of lunch rang. "Asshole," she teased, standing up.

He laughed. "See you later."

***

"Kat!" Bianca yelled, barging into her room.

"_Knocking_," Kat said, "_ever heard of it_?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Have you seen my curling iron?"

Kat sighed. "It's probably the same place as your heart earrings. And your scarf. And that shoe you lost two years ago. Besides, there's _ten minutes _until they get here; you don't have time to curl your hair! "

Bianca looked depressed. "I can't believe I lost it, it was like two hundred dollars!"

"That's what you get for buying an expensive curling iron when you _know _you can't keep track of your stuff. Now please leave. I promise I didn't take it. I, unlike you, have no use for expensive, consumerist, pointless merchandise like curling irons."

Bianca rolled her eyes, muttered something sounding like "No wonder you don't have a life," and left.

Kat took a deep breath.

_Ten minutes until Patrick gets here._

She really didn't understand why she was so excited – apprehensive would be a better word. After all, they'd been on a date before, and it wasn't fireworks and explosions and sparks. Well, most of it wasn't. Part of it was, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that Kat felt completely ridiculous.

The point was that Patrick was driving her insane – and half the time, that was a _good _thing.

The point was that she'd actually _actively _looked for something to wear that night.

The point was that Kat Stratford simply didn't give a shit what people thought about her, much less Patrick Verona, and she wasn't sure what had gotten into her. A virus? Mentally damaging food poisoning? Maybe Patrick _had _sucked her soul out, a possibility that Mandela would have been glad to vouch for.

The doorbell rang.

_Crap! He's early!_

It wasn't Patrick, though, a fact that became clear the moment a flustered voice drifted up the stairs.

"Uh, hi," Cameron stuttered. Kat could hear him from her room.

"I'm Bianca's date. You must be Mr. Stratford," he said in a voice that could at best be described as terrified reverence.

"Hmm…" Kat her heard father say, "You aren't going to try and seduce my daughter, are you?"

Kat winced. She practically _heard _the awkwardness. Cameron seemed at a loss.

"Daddy!" Bianca said, a little too shrilly. "Why. Don't. We. Go. Sit. Down?!"

Kat rolled her eyes and tuned the conversation downstairs out.

Less than two minutes later, however, the doorbell rang again, and this time it was, undoubtedly, Patrick.

"You again," she heard her father say, almost disappointed, after opening the door.

"Me again," Patrick said. Kat could picture him smirking.

"Do we need to go over the rules again?"

Kat cringed.

"I think they'll be lodged in my head for a while."

There was a beat of silence.

"Kat!" her father called up the stairs, evidently giving Patrick up as a lost cause, "Your date is here!"

"I'll be down in a minute!" she called down.

She sighed.

_Nothing is going to happen._

_Is that a good thing?_

_Nothing _bad _is going to happen_, she rephrased.

_What bad thing could happen? _

…_Cameron could pull a Tommy._

_That would be bad, _she thought.

_I just agreed with myself. Oh dear._

A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts.

_Bianca, _she thought to herself, rolling her eyes, _Earrings, shoes, what's next, a diamond necklace?_

"Come in," she said, annoyed.

"Er…hi."

She spun around, shocked. "Jesse! Sorry, I…I thought you were Bianca."

He raised an eyebrow. "Should…should I be offended? Or should Bianca?"

Kat rolled her eyes, and tried to stay calm. "So…what's up? Why are you--"

"I need to talk to you," he said urgently.

"Alright. You have a minute."

He sighed. "You're going out tonight.

"Yes," Kat said, exasperated, "Anything else you'd like to state, Captain Obvious?"

"I love you."

She blinked. Jesse looked as flustered as she did – evidently, he had spoken without thinking. She tried to come up with something to say that wouldn't make things even _more _tremendously awkward than they already were.

_Why the hell_, she thought, _Does this always manage to happen?!_

"Jesse," she said, dispirited, "I'm really sorry."

He had a half wild look in his eyes, desperate. It scared her – the last time he'd looked like that, they were having a heated argument about moving. About long distance relationships. About them.

She tried not to go back to that argument.

"You're sorry that I love you?!" he said, incredulous.

'Jesse, we can't _be _together! You _live in Ohio_!"

He walked up to her, and she took an unconscious step back, sensing the danger in close proximity. "You're the one who wanted a long distance relationship!"

"That was four months ago!" she shot back, trying not to completely lose it. She wasn't fully angry, or upset, or frustrated – it was a combination of everything that was getting to her. Jesse still looked half-crazed – he'd always been emotional, _too _emotional.

She sighed, and stood up, beginning to walk to the door. "I have to go."

"Kat!" he said, pulling her back.

She spun around. "For the love of God, Jesse! This is _not the time!_"

"You loved me," he said, his voice full of bitter disappointment. Full of betrayal.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "Were you expecting me to sit here and wait? I didn't even know you were going to visit!"

He shook his head. "Forget it. I guess people _do _change."

"Jesse," she started to say, but stopped, seeing the look in his eyes. Something was wrong.

"What the fuck?"

Jesse had evidently forgotten to close the door after coming in, because there was no other way in hell Patrick Verona had managed to get to Kat's room without her noticing.

She tried not to swear loudly. The manic look was gone – Jesse was back to how he had always been – he now looked like a little kid caught stealing cookies from a cookie jar. Patrick, on the other hand, looked positively murderous.

"Okay," she said, trying to keep Jesse, Patrick, and _herself_ calm. "Patrick, this isn't --"

"Yeah, okay," he said, but he was already walking towards Jesse.

"Patrick!" She grabbed his arm. He turned around to face her. "Just…Jesse, can you give us a minute? _Please?!"_

He shot one final apologetic look at Kat, and then left. She shut the door firmly.

"Patrick," she started, but he cut her off.

"Don't bother explaining, I saw everything. You weren't down yet, and your Dad told me to come up and check on you."

"So you stood there eavesdropping?!"

"Don't try to pin this on me, Kat, I didn't do anything."

He was right.

"Patrick, nothing happened! Jesse was just--"

"Professing his undying love for you? I wouldn't have been surprised if he launched into a monologue from Romeo and Juliet."

Kat cringed. "Look, he's really, _really _not a bad person. He's just overly sensitive, and look, it's not his fault, okay? He's a really nice guy. I feel bad for him."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"You _feel bad for him?!_"

"Well _I'm sorry_," she said, on the defensive now, "I can't help who he falls in love with, Patrick!"

He shook his head at her. "Well that's a shame," he said, opening the door. "Because I can't seem to control who _I _fall in love with either."

He walked out of the room. Somewhere in the distance, Kat heard her front door open, and then slam shut, followed by Bianca's surprised voice.

She was drifting away, though, somewhere else, trying to figure out what Patrick had meant. Trying to figure out how the hell she was going to fix this.

She ran downstairs.

"What just happened?" Bianca said.

She glanced around, trying to come up with an excuse. "He has to take his uncle to the hospital!"

Everyone looked confused. "He tripped down the stairs," she said, improvising wildly, "And is having trouble walking. Patrick went to take him to the hospital, since his uncle isn't in any fit state to drive."

She crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping they'd take the bait.

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Cameron, "Poor uncle!"

Bianca sighed. "Daddy, can _I _still go?! Please?! Cameron isn't going to try and pull anything!"

Her father narrowed his eyes. He sighed, evidently deeming Cameron harmless. "Alright. But be _home by curfew_!" He turned his focus to Kat. "Now where do you think _you're _going?!"

"I'm just going to check and see if he's okay!" she said, trying to sound someone sane, "And he's got two cousins, who are probably traumatized. His uncle isn't married," she explained.

The expressing on her dad's face softened. "Poor kids," he said, "Tell them I hope their father's alright, okay Kat?"

She smiled, thanking the Heavens above that her father had bought it. "I will. Thanks, Dad."

"Bye Dad," she said, and then rushed out of the house and into her car.

She gunned it down to Patrick's house.

_I cannot believe this is happening, _she thought, _Did I move to California or a Reality TV show? We _never _had this kind of drama in Ohio!_

_No wonder Bianca loves it here._

She pulled into his driveway, and got out of her car, took one breath, and then mentally cursed herself for not wearing a jacket.

It was freezing cold, and pouring.

She rang his doorbell, wishing a porch would miraculously spring into existence.

Five seconds passed.

_Please do not tell me that I came here for nothing. Please, please, please, please. _

Another five seconds.

She was just about to walk away when the door opened. A surprised looking Patrick stood there, looking at Kat with a blank expression. "You're wet," he said dryly.

"No shit, Sherlock, that's what _usually _happens when you stand in freaking pouring rain," she snapped. "Would you like to let me in?!"

He shrugged. "Come in, then," he said, sounding remarkably indifferent.

She stepped in, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

"We need to talk."

"Oh, really? I thought you came here to stand around."

They walked into the living room, where Sophie and Zach stood around playing videos. Sophie took one look at them, choked, and then grabbed Zach.

"It's a nice day," she said, "Let's eat out."

"Are you freaking insane?" Zach exclaimed, while Sophie made completely unsubtle gestures at Patrick and Kat. Kat winced.

"Oh," he said. "You know, you're right. I'll be in the car."

He stood up and left. Sophie stayed for a few minutes, turning off the TV. "Maybe I'll stay at Jill's tonight," she said, "And Zach can go to Ash's. Stay as long as you want," she said, nodding at Kat with both eyebrows raised. "And my dad won't be home until tomorrow night! Oh, the joy."

She dashed out before Patrick could throw something at her.

"Come on," he said robotically. "You're going to get the entire house wet."

She followed him up the stairs, and he handed her a towel. They walked into his room.

"So. Talk."

"I'm sorry."

"That's a start," he muttered.

"There really isn't anything going on between me and Jesse."

He sighed. "Alright."

There was a brief pause.

"I don't know what else to say."

He sighed. "I'm sorry I stormed out. Your Dad's going to kill me, isn't he?"

"I told him you had to take your uncle to the hospital, and I was checking on your cousins."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't have time, okay? You wouldn't have been able to come up with anything better."

He smiled a bit then, as if the bickering amused him. "Probably true."

"You still angry?"

"Yes."

She flinched. "Alright."

"Kat, I'm not used to this, alright?" he said, suddenly upset.

"Used to what?"

"Used to this _dating _thing, this _taking the girl out_, this 'wooing', or 'courting', or whatever the hell you call it. I don't _date_, I don't _have to_! Half of my friends have no idea what the hell's gotten into me! _I _don't know what the hell's gotten into me!"

She bit her lip. "Oh."

"See?! See that there?! 'Oh'. What am I supposed to say to 'oh'?!"

"I--"

"For the love of God, Kat, how do you think _I _felt, walking into your room to find you and your ex boyfriend engaged in heated debates about love and whatnot? I felt like I was walking into the living room of 'The Hills', not your freaking bedroom!"

"You--"

"And then you spew some nonsense at me about how he's a good person, well, _okay_, he can go be a good person all he wants, but that doesn't change the fact that he's in yourroom emitting love!"

The world must have been slowing down, Kat thought, because there was no way she was having this conversation with Patrick. Rather, that Patrick was having this conversation and Kat was sitting there listening.

He stood up, starting to pace. "Kat," he said, frustrated, "Do you love him?"

She winced. "Yes," she started, and then pressed on when he started to interrupt, "But in a little brother way. He's very little-brotherly," she said, and then winced at how that sounded.

He sighed. "I'm sorry I got angry."

Kat couldn't seem to say anything.

"I'm just not used to this."

Silence.

"I'm just not," he continued.

Silence.

"I think I love you."

***

A/N: That was a hell of a lot longer than I thought it was going to end up… Anyways, comment and tell me what you think. Did I overdo it? Is it too long?

S


	18. Coming Together

The world must have ended or something, because there was no way in hell that Patrick had just said that.

Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe it was a hallucination stemming from her recent trauma and bucketfuls of freezing cold rain.

Maybe she really had lost it.

"What?" she managed to say, and then winced, immediately wishing she'd said something a bit more composed.

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "Reassuring."

She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her head. "Sorry, but…" She shook her head. "_What_?!"

"Please don't make me say that again; it was painful enough the first time. And _please _do not expect me to launch into a speech – I really can't compete with Jesse in the romantic speech department."

_Finally, _something she could respond to. "I wasn't expecting that, _Romeo_. And would it _kill you_ to just shut up about Jesse? There's nothing going on between us!"

He looked defensive. "Alright."

There was an awkward silence then, which Kat took as an opportunity to try and figure out what to say to his 'I think I love you'.

_He _thinks _he loves me? How…romantic?_

_At least he said _something_._

_Do I love him?_

_Who the hell knows?_

She probably _could _love him – under the right circumstances, and given time, it was possible – but if she didn't _know _by now, then she probably didn't. After all, she thought, wasn't love supposed to be one of those things that slapped you in the face?

Then again, that was only the books. And Kat had learned by now to never, ever trust over-romanticized authors living in some dream world where soulmates flew out of the biosphere and into their arms.

Maybe she was being too cynical. Maybe she _did _love Patrick, and just…didn't know it. Maybe she'd walled herself too much, like Bianca always said.

"Kat," Patrick said, looking aggravated, "Please feel free to respond _any time you'd like_, preferably within the next decade."

She took a deep breath. "I don't know, Patrick. I don't know whether I love you or not – I think I _could_. I just – I mean, I'm not some girl who says 'I love you' after three weeks of a relationship, Patrick."

"Believe me," he said, "I got that."

She winced. "And…I don't think there's anything worse than saying something like that when it's not true. So…I think I need time, Patrick."

"Alright," he said, lying down onto his bed. Kat stood against the wall, feeling rather uncomfortable.

"Honestly, Patrick, I think if I'd love you, I'd _know_, you know?"

_I sound like such an idiot. Holy crap. I'm never opening my mouth again._

"How…romantic?"

She winced. "I'm sorry."

"Well, at least you didn't lie." He trademark smirk flashed across his face. "You'll come around."

She rolled her eyes, and then gave Patrick a begrudging glare. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Oh, don't worry. There's this one girl who will never, _ever _let me forget that."

She laughed, glad that they were back to normal – serious relationship conversations could be nice in a completely 'oh-wow-this-is-awkward' way, but they didn't suit her _or _Patrick, as the previous fifteen minutes had evidenced.

Suddenly, Patrick stood up and walked over to her. There was a completely unidentifiable expression on his face – even more curious than his usual ones.

"Patrick," she started to say, but before she could finish the thought, he'd leaned down and kissed her.

She fought. Not Patrick – at that point, she was way in over her head and fighting the heat streaming through her body would be completely futile – but she fought to stay on top of herself. Fought to maintain the control she'd _always _possessed so readily, always had handy just in case emotions got the best of her. She fought to stay conscious, thinking, and then realized it was useless.

If Patrick Verona was going to go out of his way to say the words "love" and "you" in the same sentence, she might as well have given him what she could.

_Damn it all to hell_, she thought, and then, with the urgency of someone about to lose their world, kissed him back.

"Fuck," she murmured at one point, realizing that her father was probably having an aneurysm by now. "I have to go."

Patrick ran a hand through her hair. "Don't."

"…If I'm not home by curfew, he'll castrate you."

Patrick seemed to think for a minute. "Tell him I'm still at the hospital, and I have to stay there overnight. Or something. And that…my cousins don't like sleeping alone? It wouldn't be _too _much of a lie!"

"Okay, let's see," Kat said sarcastically, "I'd tell him that you're still at the hospital. That's a lie. And that you have to stay there with your uncle. Another lie. And that your cousins don't like sleeping alone – which may or may not be true, but it's not your cousins I'd be sleeping with tonight, Patrick."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"That's not what I meant," she said, flustered, realizing what she'd just said.

He leaned in to kiss her again. "Come on," he whispered into her ear, "You want to stay."

She closed her eyes. "Fine."

He smiled, satisfied, while she fumbled with her phone. Sometime in the past 15 minutes she seemed to have lost the ability to use her fingers. Finally, she managed to call her father.

"Hi Dad," she said, in what she hoped was a completely innocent voice relaying the opposite of how she felt.

"Kat!" he said, "I've been so worried, when are you getting home?"

She cringed. "Not for a while, I don't think. Patrick said he might be staying overnight at the hospital. Apparently the emergency room is practically overflowing."

She crossed her fingers, then continued. "And his cousins don't like sleeping alone. So I was wondering, if you know, maybe I could stay the night?"

There was a brief pause.

_If he doesn't buy this, I'm screwed. I'll murder Patrick if Dad doesn't get to him first. (Unlikely). _

Finally, her Dad spoke. "Well…I suppose, if Patrick isn't home."

"He's not," Kat said quickly.

"How old are his cousins again?"

"I'm not sure," she said, not _completely_ dishonestly. "One minute, let me ask."

She put the phone on mute. "Crap, Patrick, I'm screwed."

"He didn't believe you?"

"He wants to know how old your cousins are!"

"So?"

"How many _16 year olds _don't like sleeping alone?"

"Say they're fourteen and eleven."

Kat shot him a look.

"Oh, come on, it's only subtracting, like, three years from their ages."

"Three _noticeable _years!"

"You're dad's a gynecologist, not a pediatrician."

She groaned. "Patrick, I swear to God, if I get caught, we are both dead freaking meat."

"_But_," he said, "We _won't._"

She sighed and picked the phone back up. "Fourteen, and--" she cringed—"Eleven."

He sighed heavily. "Alright, Kat. But I want you home by tomorrow morning! Now I need to go call your sister, there's five minutes until curfew and she _still _isn't home. Maybe I shouldn't have trusted Cameron…"

He hung up, muttering. Kat made a mental note to thank her sister later.

"Congratulations, Patrick," she said crossly, "I deserve an A plus in lying to my father."

He grinned. "It's a class every teenager should be forced to take. Are you hungry? You haven't eaten yet, have you?"

She felt a rush affection towards him for caring, and a hint of incredulity. "You cook?"

He rolled his eyes. "Zach's too lazy to, and Sophie would burn down the house. That leaves--" he pretended to think for a minute—"Oh wait, me!"

Kat couldn't help but agree his point about Sophie – she, like Bianca, would probably get distracted and forget that a highly flammable substance was being cooked by _fire_. She rolled her eyes at the thought.

"I'm really not that hungry," she said, a lie that Patrick saw right though.

"Well too bad," he said, leaving the room, "I am. You should probably shower, too."

She rolled her eyes. "Girls generally like to do that, yes."

Patrick reached the stairs with Kat trailing behind him. "Thanks," she murmured, hoping that Patrick would understand that she was thanking him for more than dinner.

***

One dish of pasta – Patrick could _cook _– and one hot shower later, Kat was feeling a lot more like her usual self.

Then again, that was unlikely to last very long, a fact that was made quite clear to Kat when she walked into Patrick's room to find him lying in bed, flipping through a car magazine, in boxers and a t-shirt.

Kat choked on air, and then tried to cover it up by having a coughing fit. Patrick, of course, picked that moment to be perceptive. "Like what you see?" he said, smirking.

Kat raised an eyebrow at him and shook her head.

He disregarded this. "That's alright." He looked her up and down rather suggestively. "I do too."

She rolled her eyes. "Aren't you a ladies' man," she said dryly.

He clambered out of bed – rather seductively, Kat's imagination added.

_Don't think like that_, she told herself. _It's a one way ticket to hell._

_If that's hell, it doesn't seem too bad._

She closed her eyes.

_Must. Stop. Thinking. Like. Bianca._

But when she opened her eyes again, Patrick was in front of her – practically an inch away, a fact that her brain noted quite gleefully. He leaned down to kiss her.

There were two options at that point. One: make out with Patrick Verona at night, in his room, alone, with a bed less than three feet away. Two: Go home.

It wasn't that hard a choice.

Kat wrapped her arms around his neck and threaded a hand through his hair. This was natural, instinctive, primordial – thought, in all its rational and self-contained glory, belonged nowhere near them, and Kat knew it.

Midway through, Patrick pushed her away roughly. She tried to kiss him again, but he held her firmly. "Kat," he said, so softly she practically had to lean in to hear him. He took her chin in the palm of his hand.

"Hmm?"

He tilted her head so that she was looking directly into his eyes. "Do you trust me?"

"Patrick…" she said, hoping he'd just drop the topic. She tried to lean in again, but he held her. She closed her eyes so she wasn't staring into his anymore.

"Kat," she heard him say, voice inscrutable.

"Patrick?"

"Answer the question."

She sighed, and opened her eyes. "Do I have to?"

He closed his eyes then, seemed to think about something, and then kissed her again, so tenderly she thought she might implode in on herself, all stardust and glitter and ashes.

"You really do," he murmured softly.

She shut her eyes firmly, praying that she wasn't setting herself up for a fall. Praying that this wasn't going to go the wrong way, praying that she wasn't going to find out the next day that she was moving back to Ohio. (That would have been fucking _fantastic_.)

"Yes," she breathed back.

***

_Brightness._

_It was all brightness – the sun must have exploded into a million fragments and floated down to Earth._

_But it was soft._

_Soft, and comfortable, like how she imagined floating on a cloud to be, a hundred miles above people and their petty, petty problems…_

_Was she floating?_

_Fragmented memories, disorderly recollections from the night before._

_It was warm._

_More memories – floating, drifting away, pleasure, desire, want, content, adoration, lo—_

She sat bolt upright, remembering. "Shit," she said, more to herself than anyone else. The clock next to the bed _–his _bed read 8:30. On the floor next to the bed?

A pile of clothes.

She closed her eyes, wishing it would all go away. That maybe what happened the other night would magically undo itself.

"Kat?"

No such luck.

She flipped onto her stomach and groaned into the pillow.

"You alright?"

"We had sex, didn't we?"

It was a question she already knew the answer to, unfortunately. Patrick seemed to be confused. "Yes…" he said, as if it was obvious.

"Fuck."

He seemed surprised. "Yes, that's another way to put it."

She groaned again. "I can't believe I did that."

She grabbed her clothes off the floor and started putting them on under the covers. Patrick seemed at a loss. "What's wrong?" he said.

"_What's wrong?!_" she snapped. "I can't believe this."

She flipped onto her stomach again, fully dressed.

"Kat," he said gently, "Why are you so upset about this?"

She tried to come up with a valid answer to his question, but couldn't. There really was no reason for being upset except for in her mind, where Patrick was some douchebag who'd used her. It was completely irrational, yes, but also the predominant thought at the time.

She sighed. "I have no idea."

He traced lazy figure eights on her shoulder, an action that didn't make the thoughts flow easier or her any less emotional. "Come on," he said, trying to make a joke, "It wasn't _that _bad, was it?"

She suppressed a smile.

_It was fantastic_, she thought, and then pushed the thought away.

She sighed. "I'm tired."

Patrick raised an eyebrow. "That's what usually happens when you have sex all night."

She cringed. "That was crude."

"Crude is saying that we fuc--"

"Stop talking," she said, grimacing.

He smirked. "Fine then. We spent a passionate night engaging in the art of--"

"That's enough, Patrick," she said, rolling her eyes and sitting up. He seemed to find this awfully amusing.

"So why were you upset?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "Last time this happened," she said, waving her hands at nothing in particularly, "Bad things happened."

He rolled his eyes. "Looks like I'm not the only one with trust complexes."

"So you admit you have trust complexes?" she said, a bit too happy about it.

He seemed to think for a minute. "I take that back."

"We aren't ten, Patrick, you can't take things back."

He glared at her. "What do you want for breakfast?" he said, changing the topic.

She was so shocked she forgot about the trust complexes. "You're going to make me breakfast? Is this going to get any cornier?"

"Omelet it is," he grumbled, getting out of bed and slipping on a pair of jeans.

"But what if I don't want an omelet?" Kat said, even though an omelet sounded like the most delicious thing in the world at the moment.

"Well that sucks for you, unless you want cereal," he said, a cynical smile plastered onto his face, "Because omelets are the only thing I can make."

She laughed. "Thanks," she said, but he was already half way down the stairs.

***

It was windy that day, Kat thought as she walked out of Patrick's house and towards her car an hour later. The air was misty – likely a remainder from the previous night's downpour.

The sun wasn't rising. The sky wasn't filled with streaks of crimson and swirls of yellow and whatnot. There were no birds humming some tune – in fact, the only thing Kat could hear was the dull drone of a car engine somewhere in the distance.

There was really nothing at all extraordinary about the day – in fact, the weather was pretty crappy, the sky was practically smothered with clouds, and any bird half a brain would be sleeping in. And yet, Kat was happy – just completely content – for the first time in who-knew-how long, a fact that no amount of sunny birds, movie moments and sparkling rainbows could convey.

***


	19. The Kind of Division They Don't Teach

The front door creaked.

Loudly.

Loudly _enough_, in fact, that Bianca and her father knew that she had arrived.

Which was, you know, mildly catastrophic.

"_Kat_!" Her father cried immediately, "I thought you'd _never _come home!" She accepted the cup that was handed to her begrudgingly, and rolled her eyes.

Bianca had a look on her face that Kat didn't like – a look that said _I know everything, and I'm never going to let you live this down_. Kat groaned inwardly, thinking about the five hundred tests her father was going to run on her, and the five hundreds questions Bianca was going to ask.

_Why the hell did I come back? _She thought, as she walked up the stairs with Bianca tailing behind her.

"I don't need someone to _supervise _me," she said sharply.

Bianca rolled her eyes. "That's wonderful, but _fill me in!_ What _really _happened?"

Kat put on what she hoped was an indignant face. "That _is _what happened!"

"Yeah, and I'm a unicorn," Bianca said. She glared at Kat. "If you don't tell me, I'll tell dad what _really _happened."

Kat made a face. "Are you as _shallow _as you look? Firstly, that _is _what 'really happened,'" she said, imitating Bianca's voice, "And secondly, you have no proof against me!"

"I'll tell Dad that he should call Patrick's dad to make sure what you said was really true."

Kat closed her eyes, trying to stay calm.

_If Bianca does that, me and Patrick are screwed._

_But Bianca would _never _do that – she doesn't have the guts!_

_Does she?_

She tried to act normal. "Please, Bianca, unlike you, Dad actually _trusts _me."

Bianca tutted. "Not after Patrick, he doesn't. He's all convinced that you and Patrick are having midnight trysts, and that he's seducing you."

Kat cringed as she remembered what they'd done the night before, and the other time Patrick had showed up at her window…only to stay. In her room. Until dawn.

She narrowed her eyes at Bianca. "You _wouldn't_. If Dad bans me from seeing Patrick, you can't go out either, remember?"

Bianca looked delighted. "Actually, Cameron and Dad had a _great _discussion yesterday about how unsafe real life." Her brow furrowed. "It was kind of stupid, actually, but Dad thinks Cameron is like, the most trustworthy guy _ever _now."

She grinned wickedly at Kat. "_Patrick_, on the other hand…"

Kat closed her eyes and counted to five in her head. "Alright," she said. "I'll tell you."

Bianca looked positively delighted, a look that made Kat want to kick her out of her room and never let her back in. She winced, and started talking. "Patrick got pissed at Jesse, so I went to talk to him. Then he felt bad cause we missed out on the date, and coerced me into staying, so we watched a movie and pulled an all-nighter."

Bianca's grin had rapidly faded into disappointment. "That's _it_?!"

Kat made a face. "Well what were you expecting?"

Bianca shot Kat one last look of righteous anger before storming out of the room.

***

It was _going _to happen eventually – that much Kat knew. She'd be delusional to try and convince herself otherwise. Even then, however, she couldn't pretend that the later it happened, the better. Which meant that when Jesse managed to figure out she was home a mere _half hour _after she actually _got _home, Kat was somewhat frustrated.

Did he really _have _to invade every aspect of her life? Yeah, he never meant for anything to happen, but with Jesse? He seemed to think that everyone was as innocent as he was.

"What?" she said wearily, letting him into her room.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I could have figured that much out on my own."

He winced, and she immediately felt a rush of guilt.

_You've got no right to yell at him!_

_He's got no right to mess with me!_

_He wasn't _trying _to mess with you! And what were you expecting- you already knew everything he said was going to happen!_

Jesse took a deep breath. "I shouldn't have said that then. It was …rash."

Kat sighed. "It's alright."

"You guys made up, right?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah."

"That's good," he said absentmindedly. He seemed to be lost, drifting away into a world of his own.

"Freaking _fantastic_," she said sarcastically.

He looked at her then – a look that made her want to cringe and wilt and perhaps leave the house for a while, because he saw _right through _her – that had always been the problem with Jesse, she thought. The fact that for some reason, he could _always _figure out what she was thinking. Perhaps it was the fact that they'd grown up together, perhaps that he just knew her too well. But somehow, he'd always had the ability to see through her alibis, and this was no exception.

"You know you aren't fooling anyone, right?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

She cringed. "Of course I'm not. Because I'm not _trying _to fool anyone."

He shook his head. "The way you look at him--" he started, but Kat cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. My eyes light up and sparkle, I've gotten this speech from Bianca a million times, so spare me the corniness, alright?"

He exhaled heavily. "That's not what I was going to say."

"Enlighten me, then."

"It's the way you used to look at me."

Her momentary surprise was belied by several hundred conflicting emotions all rushing to the surface at once. What was she supposed to say to that?

She sighed. "Jesse, that's bull – people don't look at different people differently."

"Yeah? Well the next time you two find yourself staring at each other like there is no tomorrow, you can let him know that."

She cringed. "That's not--"

"Of course it's not what you meant! Because you _never _mean what you say!"

"Oh and you do?"

She'd spoken without thinking, a fact that Jesse took note of immediately. "Yeah, I do; I thought you'd noticed that by now."

"And in case you haven't noticed, that didn't work out so well!"

"You went to his house, made up, stayed the night, and had sex. Didn't work out so well?"

"We didn't--" Kat started, mortified at the fact that Jesse had somehow figured things out – and somewhat curious as to _how _he'd figured it out.

"Kat," he said, as if it was obvious. "I am a guy, alright? If a girl ever likes me enough to call home _after _achieving her original goal just to 'stay the night', we are going to end up--"

She glared at him. "Thank you very much. Who _are _you, Casanova?!"

He rolled his eyes. "Well I guess that's my cue to leave. But really," he said, standing up, "Who are you, Queen Victoria?"

She groaned into her pillow. Of course, he _would _compare her to the monarch remembered by the quote "We are not amused." Oh, not to mention that she spawned about five hundred quotes about how marriage was absolutely horrible and how anyone who truly knew how horrible it was would never marry. In other words, a cynical bitch.

She really wasn't all that cynical, Kat thought, she was just logical. Logical and self-contained; it was just how she _was_. And you couldn't say that was altogether a _bad _thing – it stopped her from being, well, _Bianca_. Which, usually, was a good thing.

But when it came to _feelings_, she was screwed. Because she'd rather be logical and semi-happy, she supposed, than emotional and depressed as fuck. Wasn't that human nature?

And then Patrick had to go and tell her he loved her and ruin everything – all her logic, control and leverage over _her_self.

Which led her straight back to whether or not she loved Patrick.

How was it that she always went in circles?

One side of her said no: _That's ridiculous, I'm seventeen! No one falls in love when their seventeen, especially those idiots delusional enough to _think _they're in love at seventeen. Plus, there's no way you can be in love with someone who you can't talk to for ten minutes without getting into some sort of argument._

Which the other side of her responded with: _Of course you're in love with him, how else do you explain how you feel?_

_It's not as if I've had feelings for that many guys – I thought I was in love with Jesse, but for all I know, this could just be attraction. Love could be something completely different – I mean, love could just be a fabrication by authors trying to sell books._

_Which completely explains the number of people who say they _have _fallen in love._

_I hate that phrase,_ she thought, wincing. _Fall in love. Sounds like you drop into a pool of love, or something. _

Her phone started to ring. She sat up and grabbed it more eagerly than she'd ever admit – but it was Mandela.

"Hello?" she said, trying to mask her disappointment.

"Kat!" Mandela said, sounding relieved. "Thank _God_. I heard about your date, and you weren't picking up yesterday, or earlier today, so I thought he might have killed you!"

_Kill me. Oh, if only she knew. _"Relax, Mandela," she said, rolling her eyes. "Remember, Patrick Verona is nowhere as dangerous as he says he is."

"Gosh, Kat, you're going to get kidnapped or killed one day, and you can't say I didn't tell you. Oh! We should give you one of those emergency beeper things. I'll buy you one, and every time you two go out, I'll keep my phone on, just in case."

"Mandela, don't be ridiculous. He _isn't _going to do anything!"

_Well. Anything _bad_._

"Better safe than sorry. He dated this one girl, Tori, in sophomore year. They broke up, but she was _never seen again_."

Kat gasped. "Never _seen again?! Oh no! _Because there's _no way _she moved, or anything as completely unrealistic as that!"

"I bet she sounded exactly like you before she was kidnapped, Kat."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Sure, Mandela. But rest assured! You seem to be immune to Patrick, so you're safe."

"It's _you _I'm worried about," she said. "But I have to go. Bye, Kat. If _anything happens_, call 911 immediately!"

She ended the call, exasperated, and flopped onto the bed, more than unhappy with the reoccurrence of Patrick's many previous girlfriends.

With their track records, a breakup would end up with both of them ignoring each other for the rest of their lives – and to be honest, Kat wasn't sure how far she could last through high school trying to avoid Patrick – the last time she'd tried that, it had ended in near disaster.

Not to mention the beginning of this entire ordeal.

And the strange thing?

She couldn't figure out whether that was bad or not.

***

A/N: Sorry this took _so _long to get up; I've been _swamped _with work. Anyways, someone commented asking when the show was coming back – and it's been renewed and set to air again in _January, 2010_.

Secondly, I've spend a long time thinking about where I want to go with this, and I've come up with two options. Firstly, I could end it – it feels like an end is coming up sooner or later, and I could probably wrap it up in 3 or 4 more chapters. OR – and I've been thinking about this – I was thinking about sending them on a school trip to DC, because I had one of those, and it was a _blast_, and I can so imagine the characters getting themselves in all sorts of trouble.

Let me know what you guys think. :)

S


End file.
